Bulgarian Socialist Leads in Exit Poll for Presidential Race

(Bloomberg) -- General Rumen Radev, the candidate of the opposition Socialists, will receive most of the votes in the presidential election in Bulgaria that tests the stability of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov's coalition cabinet, exit polls show.

Radev, 53, former chief of the Air Force, is forecast to win 24.8 percent of the votes, according to an Alpha Research exit poll released on national television in Sofia on Sunday. That sets up a Nov. 13 runoff with the ruling Gerb party's Tsetska Tsacheva, who trailed with 23.5 percent, according to the poll. Winning the presidency requires a majority vote. Estimated turnout was 52.4 percent at 7 p.m., according Alpha Research.

“There's no need to hurry with the resignation,” Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov told Nova TV in Sofia. “There's no point in putting the country's stability on a card and going into an uncertain future. We need to analyze whether the ruling majority is exhausted as there's still a lot of work for the public good to be done. This vote's results are different from a parliamentary vote and are not a sufficient argument to throw behind us the work we've done in the past two years.”

The Black Sea nation, the poorest in the European Union by per-capita output, is working to bring living standards closer to the bloc's average and solidify the membership it won in 2007. Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who took office for a second term after winning 2014 snap elections, has said he'll step down if Tsacheva, 58, loses. There's no final decision yet as there are still no official results, Goranov said.

An exit poll conducted by Gallup showed Radev leading with 26.7 percent, followed by Tsacheva with 22.5 percent.

Both Radev and Tsacheva advocate easing EU and U.S. sanctions imposed against Russia over its seizure of Crimea and support of rebels in eastern Ukraine. They have campaigned to revise the penalties to appeal to those Bulgarians who value their country's religious and historical links with Russia, once Bulgaria's Cold War-era master. While the president's powers are largely ceremonial, the incumbents have played a role in shaping public opinion.

A NATO member since 2004, Bulgaria is seeking to balance its policy toward Russia, the source of most of its energy supplies, with the alliance's concerns over an increasing risk of confrontation with President Vladimir Putin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Slav Okov in Sofia at sokov@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Konstantinova, Edward Dufner