Bulgaria holds November 1 presidential election runoff

November 1 sees the second and final round of Bulgaria’s 2026 presidential elections, between the two candidates – incumbent head of state Iliana Yotova and former caretaker prime minister Andrei Gyurov – who got the two largest shares of votes in the October 25 first round.

Yotova has state news agency BTA head Kiril Vulchev as her vice-presidential candidate and Gyurov has former acting Interior Ministry chief secretary Georgi Kandev as his running mate.

The Yotova-Vulchev and Gyurov-Kandev tickets both were nominated by initiative committees, though each has the stated support of some political parties and coalitions.

Voting proceeded to a second round after no candidate out of the field of 27 met the criterion for victory at the first – more than 50 per cent of valid votes with voter turnout of at least 50 per cent.

Voter turnout on October 25 was a record low not only for a presidential election but also for any election since Bulgaria became a democracy, at 22.9 per cent, according to official figures posted by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

The October 25 round ended with Yotova ahead of Gyurov by 42 719 votes.

The November 1 vote is consequential because Yotova and Gyurov have offered the electorate visions for Bulgaria’s geopolitical orientation significantly at variance with each other. The official election campaign period has passed against the backdrop of attacks on merchant shipping off the Black Sea coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, widely blamed on Russia.

The role and powers of the president are set out in Chapter Four of Bulgaria’s constitution.

The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, decrees parliamentary election dates, appoints caretaker governments if required, grants citizenship, asylum and pardons and has a limited power of veto over legislation. Other powers include decreeing the appointments of top military officers and ambassadors.

The November 1 election day started normally, according to the CEC. Polls opened at 7am and will remain open until 8pm, with CEC officials entitled to extend voting until 9pm if there are people still in the queues waiting to vote. By Bulgaria’s electoral law, exit poll results may be released publicly only after 8pm.

By law, voting is done using voting machines at any polling station where more than 300 people are registered. On November 1, there are 9373 polling stations where voting will be done using a machine, with 2249 polling stations having two machines. There are a total of 11 622 voting machines.

In contrast to the mild weather in Bulgaria on October 25, the first day of November is seeing colder and rainier weather.

The national meteorological bureau has issued the code yellow warning of potentially hazardous weather for 18 districts in the western and central parts of Bulgaria for November 1, because of forecast heavy rain, with thunderstorms possible in some places.

Maximum temperatures will be between 9° and 14° Celsius, in Sofia about 9°, according to the meteorological bureau.

(Archive photo: president.bg)