CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION ANNOUNCED THE OFFICIAL RESULTS OF BULGARIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

48 hours after the close of polls on the day of Bulgaria’s Presidential elections, the official results are ready, the Central Election Commission said on 8th of November. The socialist-backed candidate Rumen Radev and the candidate of the main ruling party GERB, Tsetska Tsacheva continue to the second round of the voting. That gives the start of the campaigning for the runoff.

Less than 4% is the difference between the two candidates. In the first round of voting, general Rumen Radev won 25.45% of the votes, i.e. 973,408 people voted for him and Tsetska Tsacheva won 21.97% of the votes, i.e. 840,396 people voted for her.

The candidate of the United Patriots, Krasimir Karakachanov was placed third with approximately 15%, followed by the businessman Vesselin Mareshki with more than 11% of the votes. Plamen Oresharski, supported by the Movement for Rigths and Freedoms received 6.63%.

Traicho Traikov, the candidate backed by the Reformist Bloc, a centre-right junior partner in the ruling coalition, won less than 6% and Ivailo Kalfin, backed by ABC party was supported by 3.28% of the voters.

The option “I do not support any one” received 5.52% of the votes.

A record high 56.13% voter turnout was registered at this Presidential elections, very likely because of the compulsory voting requirement which was recently introduced for the first time in Bulgaria.

Election day in many polling stations outside Bulgaria was extended. In many places, Bulgarians were lining up to vote. Some could not or gave up waiting. According to data by the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 106,312 Bulgarians voted in 71 countries. As usually, the largest turnout abroad was in Turkey where 31,888 Bulgarians cast their vote. 17,864 Bulgarians voted in the UK, about 10,000 voted in Spain, 7,684 voted in Germany and 4,749 voted in the United States.

The results from the voting aboard were different from the ones in Bulgaria. The largest number of votes cast outside Bulgaria supported Tsetska Tsacheva and she leads ahead of Rumen Radev. Nearly 25% of the Bulgarians outside Bulgaria voted for Tsacheva and her running mate. 16% voted for Rumen Radev. The largest number of votes for GERB’s candidate Tsacheva come from the Bulgarians in Turkey, while Radev was overwhelmingly supported by the Bulgarian voters in the UK and the United States.

The results of the voting outside Bulgaria is as follows:

Tsetska Tsacheva (cente-right GERB) - 24,90 %

Rumen Radev (backed by the Bulagrian Socilist Party) - 16,39 %

Plamen Oresharski (backed by MRF) - 14,15 %

Traicho Traikov (backed by Reformist Bloc) - 13,16 %

Krasimir Karakachanov (United Patriots) - 10,99 %

Vesselin Mareshki - 6,06 %

Voter turnout in the national referendum was 50.59% i.e. 3,487,428 people voted.

The turnout failed short of about 13,000 votes to make the result mandatory. The outcome of the referendum becomes mandatory only if the turnout in it exceeded the threshold of 3,500,585 voters, which matches the turnout in the previous general elections.

On the question about the introduction of a majoritarian vote to elect MPs, 71.94% of the respondents (2,509,340 people) said that they voted in favour and 16.06% (560,261 people) opposed.

On the question about the introduction of a mandatory vote, 61.89% (2,159,981) of the respondents voted in favour and 25.96% (905,689) opposed.

On the third question about reducing the state subsidy for parliamentary-represented parties – to one BGN for each valid vote received in the parliament election, 72.16% (2,516,893) of the respondents were in favour and 15.02% (523,755) opposed.

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