In the first round on 25 October 2026 the leading pair, Iliana Yotova's, won 34.7% of the vote and the second just under 32%, so no pair had more than half; the election commission's site blocks scripts, so Al Jazeera and Reuters settle it.
History. 1 of 7. Only Georgi Parvanov in 2006 had more than half the votes in the first round, and low turnout still sent him to a second round.
Hunch.
The majority market resolves on the Commission's official first-round result: YES if any candidate pair has more than half of the valid votes as the Commission counts them, whatever the turnout. BBC News, Reuters and Al Jazeera reports of the official result are the backup.
We looked for cases where Bulgaria chose its president by direct vote under the same rule. There are seven, from 1992 to 2021. In each we checked how many voters took part and what share of the votes the leader won. No election ended on the first day. Six times nobody had half the votes. In 2006 the leader had 64%, but too few people voted. The first-round leader won the second round every time.