Bulgaria’s election commission declares final presidential runoff results

Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission announced the final results of the November 1 presidential and vice-presidential runoff on November 3, 2026, declaring Iliyana Malinova Yotova elected president and Kiril Aleksandrov Valchev elected vice-president. The commission’s Decision No. 441-PVR gave Yotova and Valchev’s ticket 1,093,852 valid votes, compared with 750,251 for the ticket led by Andrey Atanasov Gyurov.

According to the Central Election Commission’s decision, 56,080 valid votes were cast for “I do not support anyone.” The commission reported that 1,902,933 voters signed the electoral lists for the November 1 vote.

The decision names Yotova as president of the Republic of Bulgaria and Valchev as vice-president. It was issued in Sofia on November 3 and published by the commission at 16:31 that day. The commission also directed that the decision be published in the State Gazette.

The result identifies the two elected office-holders and the valid-vote totals reported for each runoff option. It does not provide a date for when they will take office or describe any subsequent steps beyond the direction to publish the decision.

The runoff followed the first round held on October 25. The commission reported that 1,525,034 voters signed the electoral lists for that vote, out of an electorate of 6,584,025 as defined under Article 42(1) of Bulgaria’s Constitution. These are figures for the first round; the commission reported a separate voter-signature total for the November 1 runoff.

In its account of the first-round process, the commission said its October 27 Decision No. 417-PVR announced the candidate-list results and found that no president and vice-president had been elected under Article 93(3) of the Constitution. It then identified the two tickets with the most votes to take part in a new vote on November 1, citing Article 93(4) together with Article 94.

Those two tickets were led by Yotova and Gyurov. In the first-round results reproduced in Decision No. 441, Yotova’s ticket received 528,951 valid votes and Gyurov’s received 486,232. The commission’s final runoff figures therefore relate to a later, separate ballot between those two tickets, not to the first-round totals.

The commission also said that on November 3 it approved, through Decision No. 440-PVR, an analysis of discrepancies, final numerical data and an update to the database for the November 1 election. Decision No. 441 then announced the final runoff results and the names of the people elected.

For readers following Bulgaria’s political institutions, the announcement marks the Central Election Commission’s formal declaration of the runoff outcome and of the elected president and vice-president. It also distinguishes the commission’s first-round determination—that no ticket had been elected at that stage—from the final result after voters returned for the November 1 ballot.

The decision cites provisions of the Constitution and Election Code as the basis for the commission’s actions. The source establishes what the commission declared and the vote totals it reported; it does not set out a broader assessment of the election or explain the future office-holders’ policy positions.

The commission directed that Decision No. 441 be published in the State Gazette. Readers seeking the official record can check the commission’s published decision and the State Gazette publication. The decision does not announce a further election-related date or a timetable for the elected president and vice-president to take office.