site.btaUPDATED Bulgarians Vote for Local Government Authorities on Sunday

Bulgarians voted for mayors and municipal councilors on Sunday. The polls opened at 7:00 a.m. and were declared closed shortly after 9:00 p.m., an hour after the statutory time limit of 8:00 p.m., allowing extra time for voters waiting to exercise their franchise.

There is no overseas voting in local elections. About 20 million paper ballots have been printed for Sunday's voting. 

Paper ballots only will be used after the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday eliminated voting machines over security breach allegations. Eight appeals have been lodged against that decision with the Supreme Administrative Court, but the Court said its cannot consider the matter before Monday, October 30.

Eligible voters numbered 6,038,622. The right to elect municipal councillors and mayors vests in Bulgarian citizens and EU Member State nationals who are aged 18 by polling day, are not interdicted, do not serve a custodial sentence, and have a permanent or present address registration in Bulgaria by April 29, 2023, and at least one of these addresses is in the respective municipality and, for elections of mayoralty mayors, in the respective mayoralty.

Bulgarians voted for 265 municipality mayors, 35 borough mayors (24 in Sofia, six in Plovdiv and five in Varna), 3,041 mayoralty mayors, and 5,053 municipal councilors.

EU Member State citizens may run for municipal councillor (but not for mayor) if they are aged 18 by polling day, are not interdicted, do not serve a custodial sentence, enjoy a durable or permanent residence status for Bulgaria, have resided in the respective settlement at least during the last six months preceding polling day, and are not deprived of the right to elect in the Member State of their nationality.

The candidates for municipal councilor were 30,203 (20,107 men and 10,114 women), up from 29,433 in 2019. Ten candidates were citizens of other EU countries. A total of 1,355 candidates (1,098 men and 258 women) ran for municipality mayor, and 6,915 (4,40 men and 2,084 women) for mayoralty mayor. Of the 445 candidates standing for borough mayor, 339 are men and 106 are women.

There was a single mayoral candidate in six municipalities but, to get elected, they still needed at least one vote cast for them. Sofia Municipality had the largest number of candidates for mayor: 21.

The candidates were nominated by 58 parties and nine coalitions, registered by the CEC at the national level. Local coalitions and independent-candidate nomination committees were registered by the municipal election commissions.

Municipal council seats vary by population size, from 11 for the 47 municipalities with fewer than 5,000 residents to 61 for the most populous municipality (Sofia City).

Since the previous local elections in 2019, legislation has been amended to lower the population threshold qualifying a settlement for a mayoralty to 100 from 350 before. As a result of this, 3,041 small settlements or 2,073 more than the 1,968 in 2019 elected a mayor of their own instead of having an appointed lieutenant mayor.

Balloting took place in 12,299 voting sections countrywide, including 442 mobile sections at hospitals, prisons and hospices.

To be elected, a mayoral candidate must receive more than 50% of the valid votes cast. Failing this, the top two candidates will context a second round of voting which the competent municipal election commission is to schedule within seven days, i.e. for November 5, when the candidate who gains the most valid votes will be declared the winner.

More than 15,000 police officers were deployed to maintain public order, ensure fire safety and keep the peace on polling day, the Interior Ministry said.