Bulgaria: Iotova the favourite, the Black Sea in the background, Europe facing a test of cohesion

The facts

Bulgarians are voting this Sunday, 25 October, in the first round of the presidential election. According to the Fondation Robert Schuman, some 6.5 million voters are called on to choose between 27 president and vice-president tickets, a record. Polling stations, which opened at 7 a.m., close at 8 p.m. local time. By late morning, turnout stood at only 5.8%, according to the Central Election Commission as cited by AFP and the Bulgarian news agency BTA.

A victory tonight looks very unlikely. To win in the first round, a candidate must obtain more than half of the votes, but turnout must also exceed 50%, the Sofia Globe points out. Yet the Alpha Research institute expects it to be around 40%. A runoff is therefore scheduled for 1 November.

The latest Alpha Research poll, conducted from 18 to 22 October, puts the outgoing president, Iliana Iotova, in the lead with 41.1% of voting intentions, ahead of former caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, at around 28%. Kostadin Kostadinov, leader of the nationalist Vazrazhdane party, follows with 12.8%.

The vote is taking place in a tense security climate. According to AFP, drones struck four merchant ships off the Bulgarian coast on 6 and 13 October, and 21 people are missing. Prime Minister Rumen Radev summoned the Russian ambassador, saying that the attacks served Moscow's interests, without formally naming a culprit for lack of tangible evidence. According to the AP news agency, his government has asked its partners for help to strengthen maritime security.

The positions at stake

Iliana Iotova, a former journalist, a figure of the Socialist Party and a former MEP, served as vice-president alongside Rumen Radev before succeeding him in January, when he resigned to lead his party, Progressive Bulgaria, into the April parliamentary elections, which he won. She is backed by that party, by the Socialists and, according to the Fondation Robert Schuman, by VMRO, a far-right party.

Her case deserves a hearing. According to AFP, she questions neither Bulgaria's membership of the European Union nor its membership of NATO. She presents herself as a "president of peace", calls for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, opposes continued military aid to Ukraine and highlights poverty and regional inequalities, in one of the poorest countries in the Union. This message meets a real concern about the cost of living, which the AP describes as the other major theme of the campaign.

Andrey Gyurov, 50, a former deputy governor of the central bank, is backed by the pro-Western opposition. At his final rally in Plovdiv, he said he wanted to make his country "a reliable ally within NATO", AFP reports.

Political scientist Parvan Simeonov, quoted by AFP, sums up the contest as one between a "conservative, popular, east-facing" Bulgaria and a "Western, elitist, liberal" one. For Vessela Tcherneva, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the next head of state will have to choose between balancing Russian, American and Turkish influences and anchoring the country more firmly in the Union.

The analysis

The Bulgarian president has limited powers. According to the Fondation Robert Schuman, the office is largely ceremonial, but the president can veto a law, commands the armed forces, concludes treaties and represents the country abroad. In a country on the Black Sea, a few hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian front, that is no small matter.

The real issue is the balance of power. If Iliana Iotova wins, the same camp would hold both the presidency and the government, a situation unseen for a long time according to analysts interviewed by the Anadolu agency and cited by Türkiye Today. The same analysts state that the Radev government has reportedly suspended military deliveries to Ukraine and opposed the EU's 21st sanctions package against Russia. If this is confirmed, an aligned presidency would remove the last internal institutional counterweight.

For France and Europe, the question is concrete. Sanctions against Moscow require the unanimity of the Twenty-Seven, and every hesitant capital carries weight. Black Sea security also directly concerns Paris, the framework nation of NATO's forward presence in neighbouring Romania. Bulgarians themselves seem to expect more solidarity: according to Alpha Research, 37% believe their government should have sought EU and NATO help more actively after the drone attacks, against 24% who favour total neutrality.

One should nevertheless be wary of reading this vote as a simple choice between East and West. The desire for peace and anger at poverty are legitimate, and Europe would be wrong to treat them with contempt. If part of the electorate is turning to candidates who promise dialogue with Moscow, it is also because the European promise of shared prosperity is slow to materialise in rural areas.

Conclusion

A Gaullist tradition holds that a sovereign nation freely chooses its leaders, and that Europe is built by respecting those choices. But Bulgaria's sovereignty also means the freedom to sail its waters without fearing drones. Whoever wins on 1 November, the Union must respond adequately on two fronts at once: real protection of the Black Sea and a visible effort at social cohesion in the Bulgarian countryside. Will it manage to prove that European solidarity protects better than balancing acts?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.