Bulgaria's GERB Leads President Vote after 57% Ballot Count

The nominations for president and vice president of Bulgaria's ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, GERB, party have the lead in the Sunday vote after the counting of 57% of the ballots.

The information was reported Monday by the spokesperson of the Central Electoral Commission, CEC, Ralitsa Negentsova.

Bulgaria's former Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Rosen Plevneliev, and his running mate, Justice Minister on leave, Margarita Popova, nominated by GERB, have 39.67%.

The candidates of the opposition, left-wing Bulgarian Socialist party, BSP, Ivaylo Kalfin, who is a former Foreign Affairs Minister in the Socialist-led Three-Way Coalition cabinet and a current Member of the European Parliament, and his running mate, former Culture Minister from the BSP quota and movie star, Stefan Danailov, have 29.75% of the vote.

The first and now-former Bulgarian EU Commissioner and independent presidential candidate, formerly from the party of ex King and Prime Minister, Simeon Saxe-Coburg, National Movement for Stability and Prosperity, NMSP, Meglena Kuneva, is third with 14.09%.

The leader of the far-right, nationalist Ataka party, Volen Siderov, has 3.69%.

Voter turnout at 5 pm Sunday stood at 39.67% for the presidential elections and 41.03% for the local ones, but many Bulgarians went to polls in the evening and these percentages are expected to grow.

Negentsova reminds that ballots are to be counted twice. On Sunday CEC ruled to hold elections for an extra hour over the huge lines, with polls closing at 8 pm instead of 7 pm as previously announced, which led to a delay in announcing the official results.

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