Twenty-Seven Tickets, One Threshold

Bulgaria elects a president on Sunday 25 October from 27 tickets, and under the constitution a first-round winner needs more than half the valid votes and a turnout above half of all eligible voters. If either test fails, the top two meet in a runoff on 1 November.

The incumbent, Iliana Iotova, leads the polls by a wide margin. The turnout condition is the part of the rule her lead cannot settle, and the most recent published turnout estimate is well below it.

Who is on the ballot?

Bulgarian presidents are elected on a ticket, a presidential candidate and a vice-presidential running mate together. BTA, the Bulgarian news agency, reported on 29 September that the Central Election Commission’s spokesperson, Stoyanka Balova-Tsvetkova, said 27 pairs would contest the election, nominated by 20 initiative committees and seven parties. On 24 September the commission registered Alexander Garibov as Alexander Tomov’s running mate after invalidating Sergey Indzhov’s registration, a reminder that a ticket is two registrations and either can fail. This piece follows BTA’s spellings, Iotova and Valchev; other English-language outlets write Yotova and Vulchev.

How does a candidate win in the first round?

By clearing two bars at once. Article 93(3) of the Constitution, in the English translation published by the Constitute Project, which reflects amendments through 2015, reads: “To be elected, a candidate shall require more than one half of the valid ballots, provided that more than half of all eligible voters have cast their ballots in the election.” Article 93(4) provides that if no candidate is elected, “a second round vote shall be held within seven days” between the top two, and the winner is whoever wins the majority. The 1 November date is seven days after 25 October.

The first bar is about vote share; the second is about turnout, and the two are independent. A candidate with 60 per cent of the valid ballots is not elected in the first round if fewer than half of the people on the rolls voted. This publication could not load the official text on the National Assembly’s website, and relies here on the Constitute Project translation. Some English-language coverage, including The Sofia Globe, describes the runoff trigger only as no candidate winning more than 50 per cent of the vote, which leaves out the turnout condition.

What do the polls show?

A clear leader, and a low turnout. An Alpha Research poll of 1,000 adults, conducted between 24 September and 1 October with the pollster’s own funds and reported by The Sofia Globe, put Iotova and her running mate Kiril Valchev on 44.5 per cent of those who intend to vote. Andrey Gyurov, with Georgi Kandev, had 26.1 per cent, and Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin of Vazrazhdane had 10.5 per cent. The Globe lists Iotova’s backers as Prime Minister Rumen Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Socialist Party and ABV, and Gyurov’s as We Continue the Change, Democratic Bulgaria and some extra-parliamentary reformist parties.

The same poll estimated turnout at about 37 to 38 per cent of the voters on the commission’s lists if the election had been held then. Alpha Research’s Boryana Dimitrova was quoted as saying: “It is possible that it will change during the campaign, but we do not expect such a large mobilisation.” At that turnout, no ticket could be elected on 25 October, whatever its share of the vote. The lead in the table decides who is likely to be in a runoff, not whether there is one.

Why is turnout expected to be low?

Two of the largest parties have no candidate. GERB-UDF and the MRF nominated nobody, and almost half of their supporters say they will not vote, according to the poll. Among GERB-UDF supporters who will vote, 20 to 25 per cent choose Gyurov and about 10 per cent Iotova. Of respondents who say they will stay home, about 40 per cent cite disappointment with politicians and about 24 per cent say no candidate represents them.

The vote itself is run largely by machine. BTA reports 11,600 polling stations, 9,311 of them using machine voting, because the Election Code requires machines at ordinary stations with 300 or more registered voters. More than 35,500 applications to vote abroad had been filed from 72 countries by 29 September, and two Bulgarian and three international observer organisations had registered.

What is the office worth?

Less in ordinary politics than in a crisis. In the same translation, Article 98 gives the president powers that include scheduling elections, promulgating laws, appointing heads of diplomatic missions on the government’s motion, granting citizenship and asylum and exercising the power of pardon, and Article 100 makes the president “the Supreme Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.” The president also has a role when a parliament cannot form a government, and Bulgaria held early parliamentary elections as recently as April 2026, the Globe notes.

A lead of 18.4 points, which is this publication’s arithmetic from the Alpha Research figures, is a large margin on the first bar. It counts for nothing on the second.