Exit polls released as voting closed at 8 p.m. on Sunday showed acting Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova winning the presidential runoff against former caretaker prime minister Andrey Gyurov, according to Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) and the Associated Press. If the official count confirms the projection, Iotova would become Bulgaria's first elected female head of state.

Source: Associated Press via Reflector

The surveys agreed closely. The Myara agency's exit poll for BNR put the Iotova–Kiril Valchev ticket on 51 percent, against 44.7 percent for Gyurov–Georgi Kandev, with 4.3 percent supporting neither candidate and turnout at 26.8 percent. Alpha Research put Iotova further ahead, on 52.5 percent against 43.4 percent, with turnout at 29.1 percent, BNR reported. Market Links, for bTV, gave Iotova 50.7 percent to Gyurov's 44 percent, and the Trend agency gave her 51.6 percent to his 43.4 percent.

Source: Bulgarian National Radio (BNR)

Sunday's runoff was the decisive second round made necessary by the October 25 first round, in which Iotova finished ahead of Gyurov by about 2.8 points on a turnout of barely 23 percent, according to earlier reporting. A total of 27 candidate tickets had entered the race; both finalists were nominated by initiative committees, BNR said. Bulgarians living abroad also voted, at polling stations in 60 countries.

The vote was the first major electoral test for Prime Minister Rumen Radev's Moscow-friendly Progressive Bulgaria party, which endorsed Iotova and won 131 of the 240 seats in parliament in April's vote, the AP reported. Gyurov was backed by reformist, pro-Western opposition parties. Iotova took over the presidency in January, when Radev stepped down. The presidency is elected for a five-year term; partial official results were expected later on Sunday, with the Central Election Commission's count still to confirm the outcome.

Source: Reuters via TradingView