Incumbent Bulgarian President Wins Election

• 2.11.2026, 9:22

By a wide margin.

In the second round of the presidential election in Bulgaria on November 1, Iliana Yotova, acting head of state and a close ally of incumbent Prime Minister Rumen Radev, won with 57.66% of the vote.

This is according to the results from Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission after 99.66% of the ballots had been counted, as reported by "European Truth".

Yotova defeated her opponent—the pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian candidate, former Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, who received 39.38% of the vote—by a significant margin.

Yotova became the first woman elected president of the country. She stated that Gyurov had called her to congratulate her on her victory. In her speech following the announcement of the election results, the head of state rebuked her opponents for their “campaign of pressure.”

“After all this pressure, after all this hatred that was unleashed upon these people, not a single one of them backed down; not a single one of them betrayed us. But today, the people have spoken with their votes: ‘No, that’s not right.’ It is through dialogue, conversation, the search for solutions, cooperation, and coordination with other institutions that the right decisions can be made—not when your main message is to sabotage everyone else,” Yotova stated.

As is well known, ahead of the second round of the presidential election, Bulgaria’s former president, former prime ministers, and former ministers appealed to citizens to vote for Gyurov in the second round of the presidential election.

It should be noted that Yotova is a direct follower of Rumen Radev’s political vision and leadership style. She has served as his vice president since his first term in 2017.