Presidential elections were held in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

on 22 October 2006, as decided on 27 July 2006 by the

Bulgarian Parliament The National Assembly ( bg, Народно събрание, Narodno sabranie) is the unicameral parliament and legislative body of the Republic of Bulgaria. The National Assembly was established in 1879 with the Tarnovo Constitution. Ordina ...

. The runoff took place on 29 October 2006, while the

electoral campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...

spanned 19 September – 20 October. At the election,

Georgi Parvanov Georgi Sedefchov Parvanov ( bg, Георги Седефчов Първанов, ) (born 28 June 1957) is a Bulgarian historian and politician who was President of Bulgaria from 2002 to 2012. He was elected after defeating incumbent Petar Stoy ...

won his second and final term as

President of Bulgaria The president of the Republic of Bulgaria is the head of state of Bulgaria and the commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian Army. The official residence of the president is at Boyana Residence, Sofia. After the completion of the second round of voti ...

. Some of the

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, autho ...

parties were disunited at the time but still chose to support a common candidate,

Nedelcho Beronov Nedelcho Krumov Beronov ( bg, Неделчо Крумов Беронов) (22 July 1928 – 4 July 2015) was a Bulgarian jurist, right-wing politician and Constitutional Court chairman, as well as a presidential candidate in the 2006 presidentia ...

Prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

and head of the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

Sergey Stanishev Sergey Dmitrievich Stanishev ( bg, Сергей Дмитриевич Станишев ; born 5 May 1966) is a Bulgarian politician who is serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He previously served as President of the Party of ...

expressed his strong support for the current president, Georgi Parvanov, in July 2006, and Parvanov officially stated his desire to run for a second term on 25 August 2006. He was also backed by the other two members of the then ruling Triple coalition –

NDSV The National Movement for Stability and Progress ( bg, Национално движение за стабилност и възход, translit=Natsionalno dvizhenie za stabilnost i vazhod, NDSV) is a liberal, populist political party in Bulgari ...

and DPS. In the first round, incumbent Georgi Parvanov received 64% of the vote, ahead of

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

leader

Volen Siderov Volen Nikolov Siderov ( bg, Волен Николов Сидеров ; born 19 April 1956) is a Bulgarian far-right politician and chairman of the nationalist party Attack. He has been the editor of numerous newspapers and has authored five boo ...

who came second with 21.5%. However, Parvanov was forced into a runoff with Siderov, as Bulgarian law requires a turnout of 50% for a president to be elected in the first round. Turnout for the first round was 42.51%. The defeated

forces called for abstention, while some

far-left Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...

formations expressed their support for Siderov. The second round saw Parvanov win a decisive victory with 75.9% as opposed to Siderov's 24.1%, meaning that Parvanov became the first person to be democratically re-elected as President of Bulgaria.

Zhelyu Zhelev Zhelyu Mitev Zhelev ( bg, Желю Митев Желев; 3 March 1935 – 30 January 2015) was a Bulgarian politician and former dissident who served as the first non-Communist President of Bulgaria from 1990 to 1997. Zhelev was one of the mos ...

, although having served two terms, was elected as a president not by popular vote, but by the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

for his first term. The turnout was 41.21%.

Results

References and notes

External links

Izbori2006.org – official Central Electoral Commission website for the election

Focus News' Elections 2006 section
{{Bulgarian elections Presidential elections in Bulgaria

Presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The pr ...

October 2006 events in Europe

Results

See also

References and notes

External links