Bulgaria, continued: Iotova ahead by a whisker, abstention and the Black Sea shape the runoff

The facts

The first round of Bulgaria's presidential election produced no winner. According to exit polls and parallel counts published on Sunday evening, the outgoing president, Iliana Iotova, came first with 32.7 to 36.5% of the vote, ahead of former caretaker Prime Minister Andrei Gyurov, credited with 31 to 33.5%. The two candidates will face each other in a runoff on Sunday 1 November, as reported by AFP and the AP news agency.

The gap is much narrower than expected. The latest Alpha Research poll, conducted the previous week, gave the outgoing president a lead of nearly thirteen points. On Sunday evening, the public news agency BTA published five parallel counts: four put Iliana Iotova ahead, by 1.9 to 5.5 points, while the Market Links institute had Andrei Gyurov slightly ahead, at 33.5% against 32.7%. The pro-Russian nationalist Kostadin Kostadinov, leader of the Vazrazhdane party, would win around 12.5% of the vote according to the same estimates. Official results from the Central Election Commission are still to come.

The other striking fact is abstention. According to BTA, turnout stood at 16.04% at 4 p.m., compared with 24.12% at the same time in the 2021 presidential election. The Alpha Research and Myara institutes estimated it at just over 21% in the early evening, according to public radio BNR and the Sofia Globe. The AP describes turnout as a record low. Yet Bulgarian law requires both a majority of the votes and a turnout above 50% for a candidate to be elected in the first round.

The positions at stake

Iliana Iotova, a former journalist, former Socialist MEP and vice-president for nearly ten years, succeeded Rumen Radev in January; he has since become Prime Minister. She is backed by his party, Progressive Bulgaria, and by the Socialists. According to AFP, she presents herself as a "president of peace", remains committed to the European Union and NATO, but criticises continued military aid to Ukraine and calls for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. She also highlights poverty and regional inequality, very real issues in one of the Union's poorest countries.

This message is coherent and speaks to part of the Bulgarian electorate, historically close to Russia and weary of a war that weighs on its economy. It would be unfair to reduce it to mere complacency towards the Kremlin.

Andrei Gyurov, a former deputy governor of the central bank, is backed by the pro-Western parties We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria. According to Anadolu, he signed a security cooperation agreement with Kyiv when he headed the caretaker government. According to the AP, he said he wants Bulgaria to have "a voice of its own in Europe".

The analysis

The outgoing president's disappointing score is probably due in large part to the Black Sea. On 6 and 13 October, AFP recalls, four merchant ships were struck by drones off the Bulgarian coast, and 21 people are missing. Rumen Radev summoned the Russian ambassador, saying the attacks served Moscow's interests, without formally naming a culprit for lack of evidence. Quoted by AFP, political scientist Teodor Slavev sees the result as a "stinging electoral slap" for the executive, whose response to Russian threats reportedly seemed unconvincing.

This is the main lesson of the first round: when national security is at stake, ambiguity comes at a price. Advocating peace is legitimate, and Europe would be wrong to scorn the aspiration for an end to the fighting. But lasting peace requires respect for international law and the sovereignty of states, which attacks on civilian ships directly threaten. A head of state must be able to say clearly who is threatening its coasts when the facts are established, and demand an investigation when they are not.

Massive abstention is the other signal, and it is not unique to Bulgaria. After a series of snap elections in recent years, a large share of Bulgarians no longer believe their vote changes anything. The Myara institute contrasts a "conservative, popular and East-facing" Bulgaria with a "Western, elitist and liberal" one. Europe knows this social and territorial divide well, including in France.

Conclusion

The Bulgarian president's powers are mostly ceremonial, but the president represents the country, appoints caretaker governments and commands the armed forces. The choice made on 1 November will show whether Sofia remains a reliable partner on the Union's eastern flank, at a time when the Black Sea is becoming a front line.

For France and Europe, the response cannot be limited to hoping for the right result. If the Union wants Bulgarians to look West, it must show them that it protects them, by concretely strengthening maritime security in the Black Sea, and that it helps them close their social gap. The question remains open: will Europe manage to convince those who no longer vote before trying to convince those who doubt it?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.