Voters in Bulgaria are heading to the polls to elect a new president from among 21 candidates.
Polling stations opened on November 6 with the latest election surveys showing no candidate likely to win the 50 percent required to win. If none does, a runoff election will be held on November 13.
The leading candidate is parliament speaker Tsetska Tsacheva of the center-right GERB party of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov.
Tsacheva has run on a platform of continuing the pro-Europe foreign policy of incumbent President Rosen Plevneliev.
Her main opponent was Socialist Rumen Radev, a former military pilot and head of the country’s air force. He has called for closer relations with Russia and for lifting sanctions against Moscow that the European Union adopted because of Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea and its military involvement in eastern Ukraine.
Preliminary results were expected shortly after voting ends, with final results to be announced on November 8.