[7] Incumbent president Rumen Radev gathered 66.72% of the vote, defeating university professor Anastas Gerdzhikov in a runoff.
[10] The leaders of PP, BSP, ITN, and DB announced on 10 December that they had agreed to form a coalition that would end a months-long political crisis.
[13] Following the elections, ITN opted to try and form a minority government and started talks with potential partners (DB, IBG-NI, and BSP) in order to secure their support.
[6][5] On 6 September 2021, BSP handed back the last mandate of forming a government, meaning the parliament would be dissolved and a third parliamentary election would officially take place in 2021.
[1] The 240 members of the National Assembly were elected by open list proportional representation from 31 multi-member constituencies ranging in size from 4 to 16 seats.
All lines with a light grey background indicate support for a party or coalition that has been agreed upon outside of the official CEC electoral registration.
[26] After the president announced the new caretaker cabinet,[27] the economy and finance ministers who were replaced in the reshuffle, Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev, announced that they would compete in the November election as part of a new coalition named We Continue the Change,[28] with the aim of becoming a new anti-corruption force that could form an effective government.
The global energy crisis was a large issue in the campaign, with natural gas prices soaring to record highs.
[29] Campaigning parties offered varying solutions to address this, with some supporting more reliance on Russia for energy, while others proposed domestic nuclear power in the longer term.
[31] The green pass required citizens to provide proof of their vaccination status in several locations such as hospitals, schools and restaurants.
[34] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) announced in a statement that it would send an observation team to the general elections, following an invitation from the authorities of Bulgaria.
Lastly, Revival managed to enter the parliament with around 5% of the votes, running on a campaign of Bulgarian nationalism and opposition to vaccine mandates.
[39] Shortly after the second round of the presidential elections, President Radev was projected to win another term with nearly two-thirds of the vote, according to exit polls published by Alpha Research and Gallup International.
[43] Korneliya Ninova, the leader of BSP, also resigned after her party's "catastrophic" result, winning only 26 seats and falling to fourth place.
[47] Analysts such as Boryana Dimitrova and Parvan Simeonov predicted that PP, ITN, DB, and BSP would form a coalition.
[48] Shortly after exit polls projected that President Radev had won another term with nearly two-thirds of the vote, he commented in a statement that "an unprecedented political month of two types of elections ended, which clearly showed the will of the people to change and to break with corruption, robbery and lawlessness, to remove the mafia from power.
Vassilev commented that: "Next week we are beginning work on developing a clear and precise plan on how to make Bulgaria a much better place to live in the coming 4 years".
[51] The leaders of four Bulgarian parties on 10 December said they had agreed to form a coalition that would end a months-long political crisis, making it the first regular government since April.