Bulgaria’s acting President Iotova leads in run-off exit polls

Bulgaria’s acting President Iliana Iotova is leading the presidential election run-off, according to exit polls in the race overshadowed by drone attacks on ships off the country’s Black Sea coast.

Iotova, who advocates for dialogue with Moscow and opposes military aid to Ukraine, won just over half the vote in Sunday’s run-off, according to three exit polls, reported Bulgaria’s official news agency, BTA.

Iotova had 51 percent compared to about 44 percent for her rival, Andrey Gyurov, who is backed by the pro-Western opposition.

Exit polls put voter participation at about 27 to 29 percent, slightly higher ‌than the first-round race last week, which had a record-low turnout of 23 percent.

Official results are expected on Monday as ballots are counted for the presidency which is largely ceremonial.

If confirmed, Iotova would become Bulgaria’s first elected female president.

The 61-year-old took over as acting president in January, when her longtime ally Prime Minister Rumen Radev resigned to run in, and win, a parliamentary election.

“I don’t like either of the two candidates,” Krassimira Kostova, a 64-year-old teacher in the capital Sofia, who voted anyway, told the AFP news agency.

Petar Doitchinov, a 67-year-old retired engineer, said he had skipped the first round last week because he expected a run-off. He said he voted for “the lesser evil”, as neither candidate matched his “vision of democracy”.

The vote comes as 21 people remain missing following a series of drone attacks last month on commercial vessels off the country’s Black Sea coast. They are suspected to be spillover from the Russia-Ukraine war.

PM Radev has said that the attacks appear to serve Russian interests and summoned the Russian ambassador, though his government said there was no evidence directly linking them to Moscow.

Both presidential candidates have condemned the attacks and called for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine.

Gyurov, a banker and former caretaker prime minister, criticised Iotova in a television debate for not explicitly blaming Russia. “Russia must stop its aggression so that the next steps can be taken,” he said.

Iotova said “peace can come only through negotiations”. After voting, she said she wanted “Bulgaria to be strong in a strong Europe” and “sovereign in its decisions”.

In the first round of voting last week, Iotova won 35 percent, with Gyurov on 32 percent – a much narrower gap than the 20-point lead predicted by opinion polls for Iotova.

Political analyst Teodor Slavev told AFP that voters were passing judgement on “Iotova’s unconvincing response regarding Russian threats in the Black Sea”.