The result, if confirmed, would place a president sceptical of military aid at the head of a NATO and EU member state at a moment when its coastline is exposed to a war it did not choose.
Bulgaria's acting president, Iliana Iotova, is leading the presidential run-off, according to exit polls cited by the country's official news agency, BTA, and reported by Al Jazeera. Three exit polls put her on just over half the vote, at 51 percent, against about 44 percent for Andrey Gyurov, the candidate backed by the pro-Western opposition. Official results are expected on Monday, when the ballots are counted.
The office is largely ceremonial, which limits what the result can change in policy. Its political weight nonetheless lies in the signal it sends. Iotova, who took over as acting president in January when her longtime ally Prime Minister Rumen Radev resigned to run in, and win, a parliamentary election, advocates dialogue with Moscow and opposes military aid to Ukraine. Gyurov, a banker and former caretaker prime minister, has pressed her for not explicitly blaming Russia for the drone attacks on commercial vessels off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. If the exit polls are confirmed, she would become the country's first elected female president.
The campaign has been overshadowed by those attacks. Twenty-one people remain missing after a series of drone strikes last month on commercial ships off the coast, suspected to be spillover from the Russia-Ukraine war. Radev has said the attacks appear to serve Russian interests and summoned the Russian ambassador, though his government said there was no evidence directly linking them to Moscow. Both candidates have condemned the attacks and called for a diplomatic end to the war. Gyurov said in a television debate that "Russia must stop its aggression so that the next steps can be taken"; Iotova said "peace can come only through negotiations", and after voting that she wanted "Bulgaria to be strong in a strong Europe" and "sovereign in its decisions".
Turnout offers its own reading. Exit polls put participation at about 27 to 29 percent, slightly above the record-low 23 percent of the first round last week. Voters quoted by AFP described a choice between unpalatable options. Krassimira Kostova, a 64-year-old teacher in Sofia, said she disliked both candidates but voted anyway; Petar Doitchinov, a 67-year-old retired engineer, said he backed "the lesser evil". The first round gave Iotova 35 percent to Gyurov's 32, a far narrower gap than the 20-point lead opinion polls had predicted, and analyst Teodor Slavev told AFP that voters were judging "Iotova's unconvincing response regarding Russian threats in the Black Sea".
What is not yet known is whether the exit polls will hold once the count is complete, and how a new president would work alongside Radev's government on a file as sensitive as the Black Sea. The scale of the drone campaign, and who is directing it, also remains unconfirmed by the authorities. The result, if confirmed, would place a president sceptical of military aid at the head of a NATO and EU member state at a moment when its coastline is exposed to a war it did not choose.
