A former air force commander viewed as sympathetic to Russia beat out Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s nominee in the first round of Bulgaria’s presidential election Sunday, AFP reported.
Rumen Radev, backed by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), won 24.9 percent of the vote, while Borisov’s preferred candidate Tsetska Tsacheva won 22.3 percent, according to a projection based on 75 percent of the votes counted from polling firm Gallup.
Prior to the elections, Borisov staked his future on Tsacheva’s success, promising to call early elections if she failed to win the first round. He walked back the comments on Sunday, saying he would quit if Tsacheva loses the November 13 runoff.
“Next Monday, as I already said — if we lose the ballot, which I hope we won’t, we will go for early elections, we will exit the government,” Borisov told reporters.