Bulgarians Vote for President With Premier’s Job at Stake
- Opposition Socialist candidate leads in first round of voting
- Premier Borissov reiterates threat to resign if Tsacheva loses
Bulgarians are voting in the final round of a presidential election that may topple Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s coalition government and trigger the third snap vote in the European Union’s poorest member in five years.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 8 p.m. with about 6.8 million voters eligible to pick a successor to Rosen Plevneliev, who chose to stand down after his single five-year term ends in January. Borissov has vowed to resign if the ruling Gerb party’s nominee for the head of state, Parliamentary Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, fails in the final round, even though the vote doesn’t affect the balance of power in the assembly. The opposition Socialist candidate Rumen Radev, a U.S.-trained former head of the NATO member’s Air Force, won the first round on Nov. 6 with 25 percent of the vote. Tsacheva took 22 percent.