Socialists, Ruling Party to Face Off in Bulgarian Runoff
- Opposition Socialists’ Radev, Gerb’s Tsacheva to vie Nov. 13
- Premier Borissov may quit if ruling party candidate loses
General Rumen Radev, the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s candidate for president, won the most votes in Sunday’s first round, raising the risk of snap parliamentary elections should he beat the ruling party’s nominee in a runoff on Nov. 13.
Radev, 53, former chief of the Air Force, garnered 25.7 percent of votes in a field of 21 candidates, the Central Electoral Commission in Sofia said on its website after 95 percent of the ballots were counted. Radev will face the ruling Gerb party’s Parliament Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, who took 22 percent. Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who formed a coalition after a snap vote in 2014 for a second term in office, threatened to step down if Tsacheva, 58, loses.
The election outcome “renews the specter of political instability, with potential negative effects on economic momentum and reform drive,” Ciprian Dascalu, ING’s chief economist for the Balkans, said in an e-mailed note on Monday. “The situation does weaken the Premier’s position as he might have to make some concessions to garner support for Tsacheva and to keep the ruling coalition intact in the coming months.”