In brief
Bulgarian president Iliana Iotova and running mate Kiril Valchev are ahead in the second round of the presidential election, occupying 57.9% of the vote according to early tallies. The Central Election Commission processed 17.4% of protocols at 11:00 p.m. local time, later increasing to 52.4% of tally sheets, yielding 580,918 votes for the pair. Final results remain pending as more ballots are counted, and the degree to which the preliminary numbers will shift remains uncertain.
Sofia, November 2, 2026 – Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced that incumbent President Iliana Iotova and her vice‑presidential running mate Kiril Valchev are leading the second round of the presidential election with a reported 57.943% of the vote processed from a portion of the protocols as of 11:00 p.m. local time.
According to the CEC’s official website, the initial tally represented 17.39% of the protocols across the country. Iotova and Valchev’s competitors, Andrey Gurov and Georgi Kandev, had accumulated 39.007% of the same early count.
Later on the following morning, the CEC released an updated set of preliminary results. With 52.42% of the tally sheets processed by the district election commissions, the CEC reported 57.95% of the vote for Iotova and Valchev, amounting to 580,918 ballots. Gurov and Kandev had 39.01%, or 390,988 votes, while 3.04% – 30,473 voters – had selected “None of the above.”
These numbers are consistent with parallel counts conducted by polling agencies across the country, all indicating that Iotova and Valchev maintain a clear plurality over their opponents. The figures have been published as part of the CEC’s‑commissioned “preliminary results” series, which are subject to further verification as the remaining protocols are processed.
The CEC’s own reporting, in both the TASS and BTA releases, made no claims about the final outcome of the election. Instead, the commission emphasized that the tweets are preliminary and that the full tally will be available once all 100% of protocols have been verified. The Office stresses that the proportion of ballots yet to be processed exceeds half the total, leaving the question of whether the early majority will be preserved unanswered.
National observers note that the margin between the leading and trailing candidates currently stands at roughly 18.94 percentage points. However, because the results are still being compiled, the possibility of a significant swing cannot be discounted, and the ultimate mandate will only be confirmed after the exhaustive audit of all election commission records.
Observers and stakeholders have highlighted that the present data, while revealing a decisive lead for Iotova and Valchev, does not account for the entire electorate. The ongoing processing of the remaining tally sheets maintains a degree of uncertainty that will be resolved only once the official, final count is published.
