Iliana Yotova won Bulgaria’s presidential runoff with 57.6% of the vote, becoming the country’s first woman elected head of state. (Foto: Instagram)
Bulgaria’s interim president, Iliana Yotova, won the presidential election’s runoff on Sunday, Nov. 1, with 57.6% of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission after all votes were counted. The result makes Yotova the first woman elected head of state in Bulgaria.
Andrey Gyurov, a former interim prime minister backed by pro-Western opposition parties, placed second with 39.5% of the vote. Yotova spoke after early projections showed her ahead and thanked voters who did not support her, saying their votes mattered and that she would listen to their concerns and hopes.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Yotova on her victory. “From security and defense to our competitiveness and energy independence, I look forward to continuing our work together,” she said in a post on X. She added: “For a strong Bulgaria in a strong Europe.”
Yotova, 62, is a politician and journalist born in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. She studied Bulgarian and French philology at Sofia University. She later pursued further studies at the National School of Administration in Strasbourg, France, and at the Center for European Studies at the University of Strasbourg.
