Bulgaria's head of state Rumen Radew won the runoff election for the presidency convincingly, according to a forecast. He can count on 65.7 percent of the vote, while his challenger Anastas Gerdschikow was able to convince 31.5 percent of the voters on Sunday, according to the first forecast of the Gallup International polling institute based on voter surveys. According to initial surveys, voter turnout was less than 40 percent and thus even lower than in the first round of voting a week ago. However, this has no effect on the validity of the runoff election.
The opinion research institute Alpha Research published a similar forecast for the outcome of the second round of elections.
The runoff election between the two best-placed candidates in the first ballot had become necessary because Radew narrowly missed his re-election in the first ballot with 49.5 percent of the votes.
The general of the reserve Radev and the university professor Gerdzhikov, rector of the University of Sofia, ran as independent candidates.
Radew was supported by the socialists who emerged from the former communists and the protest parties, Gerdschikow by the bourgeois GERB of the former head of government Boiko Borissow and the party of the Turkish minority DPS.