Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Local elections in Bulgaria come to an end 

Photo: BGNES

On 5 November, the run-off elections for mayors in 91 municipalities, 451 town halls and 31 districts (in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna) officially ended. 
According to preliminary data from the exit poll of Gallup International Balkan, BNR's partner in the local elections, by 8 p.m. the winner in Sofia is Vasil Terziev (PP-DB, Save Sofia) with 51.4 per cent, followed by Vanya Grigorova (supported by BSP for Bulgaria, the Left Party and others) with 44.3 per cent. 
Of those who voted for GERB/SDS in the first round in Sofia, 33% voted for Vasil Terziev in the run-off and 53% for Vanya Grigorova, according to Gallup exit poll data.
In Plovdiv, GERB won the election with its candidate Kostadin Dimitrov, who received 52.8 per cent of the vote.
The results in Varna and Blagoevgrad are tight - in Varna, PP-DB's Blagomir Kotsev gets 49.4% against 45.3% for GERB's Ivan Portnih, mayor of Varna since 2013 and running for a fourth term, and in Blagoevgrad, Metodi Baikushev (PP-DB) leads with 49.5% ahead of Ilko Stoyanov (independent), who got 48.1% of the vote.

There were 301 reports of electoral law violations received by the Ministry of Interior by 6 p.m. on polling day, and more than 2,600 since the start of the campaign. There were also problems with some of the voting machines, such as printing only one ballot paper when two votes were marked (for example, for mayor of a municipality and mayor of a district), or printing two ballot papers when two votes were marked and one was blank.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Ivan Krastev

Just 10% of children deprived of parental care in Bulgaria can be adopted

Currently, out of nearly 8,000 children deprived of parental care, just 850 have permission for full adoption. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Policy Ivan Krastev at a roundtable in Sofia, specifying that about 3,700 children..

published on 9/26/25 5:35 PM

EC: Bulgaria may be temporarily deprived of part of the money under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan

Bulgaria may be temporarily deprived of part of the money from the second tranche of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, but only if the anti-corruption commission is politically and financially dependent, the European Commission told the..

published on 9/26/25 4:04 PM
Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov

Vazrazhdane party organizes anti-government protest in central Sofia on September 27

The nationalist party Vazrazhdane has announced a protest demanding the resignation of the government on September 27. The protest will be held in front of the National Assembly building in central Sofia at 12:00. A protest is..

published on 9/26/25 3:55 PM