November 17 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's incumbent president Rumen Radev won 49.42% of the votes in Sunday's first round of the presidential elections and will face university professor Anastas Gerdzhikov in a runoff, final official results showed on Wednesday.
Gerdzhikov came second with 22.83% of the votes, according to final data by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).
Radev is supported by the Bulgarian Socialist Party and recently formed anti-graft parties We Continue the Change and Rise Up.BG. For his part, Gerdjikov has the support of the centre-right coalition of GERB and Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov.
Mustafa Karadayi, the candidate of predominantly ethnic Turks' Movement for Rights and Freedoms, won 11.57% of the votes. Kostadin Kostadinov, leader of the nationalist Revival party, was supported by 3.92% of the voters, followed by Lozan Panov, chairman of the Supreme Court of Cassation, with 3.68% backing.
Voter turnout stood at 40.50%.
Sunday's presidential elections were held simultaneously with elections for parliament, the country's third general vote this year.
We Continue The Change won 25.67% of the votes against 22.74% for the GERB-UDF coalition. Five other parties cross the 4% threshold for entry into parliament, the final results showed.