About 37% of people on Bulgaria's voter rolls will cast ballots in the presidential election on October 25, and a runoff looks almost certain, pollster Genoveva Petrova of Alpha Research told BNT's "Denyat Zapochva" programme.
The ticket of Iliana Yotova and Kiril Valchev leads with 44.5%, but stays below 50%, so a runoff is possible. Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev are second with 26.1%, while Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin are third with 10.5%.
Ivan Hristanov looks set for just over 3% support. He's followed by Radostin Vasilev with 2.5%, Evelin Mihaylov with 2.2% and Nikolay Nenchov with 1.9%, with several other tickets polling around or just above 1%. None of them tops 50% this early in the campaign.
Between 2.4m and 2.6m people are expected to vote. Interest in the presidential race is weaker than it was for the parliamentary election a few months ago, Petrova said. She pointed to turnout as one of the factors that will decide whether the race goes to a runoff.
Among those who don't plan to vote or are still undecided, 42% say they're disappointed with all politicians, and 25-26% say no candidate speaks for them.
"People's reluctance to take part isn't down to the campaign — it's down to what politicians are offering," Petrova said. She added that this is hard to fix, and that before the campaign ends, candidates need to motivate value-driven voters and party supporters so that turnout doesn't drop even further.
Support for the candidates isn't locked in yet. "A third of those who currently say who they'd back aren't fully certain and could still change their mind," she said. That means the field could still shift before the first round.
The figures come from a poll by Alpha Research, funded by the agency itself and published on its website. Fieldwork ran from September 24 to October 1 among 1,000 adult Bulgarians nationwide. People were interviewed at home on tablets using a standardized format. The survey used a two-stage sample with quotas for the main social and demographic groups.