November 9 (SeeNews) - Bulgarians will go to polls to elect the country's new president on November 13 in what is likely to be a tight race between former Air Force commander Rumen Radev backed by opposition Socialist party, and parliament speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, candidate of centre-right governing party GERB.
Final results of the November 6 vote released on Wednesday by the Central Election Commission showed Radev leading over Tsacheva by 3.48 percentage points. When combined, the votes for Radev and Tsacheva, 25.44% and 21.96% respectively, are less than the combined support for all of the 19 other candidates who ran in the first round.
Krassimir Karakachanov, candidate of nationalist Patriotic Front coalition and Ataka party, came third with 14.97%, according to final results. Local media quoted Karakachanov as saying that he will not call on his supporters to vote for either Radev or Tsacheva and will leave to the voters to decide.
Businessman Veselin Mareshki, who won 11.17% of the votes in the first round, said he woud support Tsetska Tsacheva in the run-off.
Former prime minister Plamen Oresharski was backed by 6.63% of the voters. Traycho Traykov, the candidate of the junior partner in the government coalition, right-wing Reformist Bloc (RB), had 5.87%.
For the first time in the presidential elections voters had the option to support none of the candidates. The voters, who chose that option in the first round, represented 5.59% of the total number who cast ballots.