According to preliminary results in Bulgaria’s presidential election, leftist opposition candidate Rumen Radev has won with 24.9 percent of the vote.
Parliament speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, of the same party as Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, came in second in the November 6 election with 22.3 percent. Preelection polling had predicted Tsacheva to win.
Since neither candidate polled the 50 percent needed to win the presidency in one round, a second round of voting will be held on November 13. Final results of the first round are expected on November 7 or 8.
Before the election, Borisov had said he would call early parliamentary elections if Tsacheva failed to win the first round.
Radev, of the Socialist Party, has advocated closer relations with Russia and an end to sanctions imposed on Moscow following the 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea and Russia's military involvement in eastern Ukraine.