If voters backing various Russian-friendly candidates in the first round switch to ruling party-backed Iliana Iotova in the run-off vote, her path to winning the presidency looks more likely, experts predict.
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On October 25, Bulgarians will vote for a new president in an election that highlights old-school East-West divisions in the country.
The election will likely produce a second round run-off between current acting President Iliana Iotova, the frontrunner, who is supported by President Rumen Radev’s ruling Progressive Bulgaria, the pro-Kremlin Bulgarian Socialist Party and the smaller nationalist far-right party VMRO-BND.
On the other geopolitical side of the race is former interim prime minister Andrey Gyurov - a pro-EU, Western-oriented candidate supported by the centre-right opposition parties We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria.
Apart from Gyurov and one other candidate, former agriculture minister Ivan Hristanov, almost all the contenders are fronting Eurosceptic, nationalist campaigns, which often border on Russia-sympathetic sentiment.
Experts say voters who support such stances might back various rivals to Iotova in the initial round, but switch to her if she faces a pro-EU candidate like Gyurov in the second round, in early November.