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2006 Bulgarian presidential election
Turnout	44.11% (first round) 2.48pp; 42.62% (second round) 12.30pp
President before election; Georgi Parvanov; BSP	Elected President ; Georgi Parvanov; BSP

Presidential elections were held in Bulgaria on 22 October 2006, as decided on 27 July 2006 by the Bulgarian Parliament.^[1] The runoff took place on 29 October 2006, while the electoral campaign spanned 19 September – 20 October. At the election, Georgi Parvanov won his second and final term as President of Bulgaria.

Some of the right-wing parties were disunited at the time but still chose to support a common candidate, Nedelcho Beronov. Prime minister and head of the Socialist Party Sergey Stanishev expressed his strong support for the current president, Georgi Parvanov, in July 2006,^[2] and Parvanov officially stated his desire to run for a second term on 25 August 2006.^[3] He was also backed by the other two members of the then ruling Triple coalition – NDSV and DPS.

In the first round, incumbent Georgi Parvanov received 64% of the vote, ahead of nationalist leader Volen Siderov who came second with 21.5%.^[4] 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.^[5] Turnout for the first round was 44%. The defeated right-wing forces called for abstention, while some far-left formations^{[citation needed]} expressed their support for Siderov.

The second round saw Parvanov win a decisive victory with 75.9% as opposed to Siderov's 24.1%,^[6] meaning that Parvanov became the first person to be democratically re-elected as President of Bulgaria.^[7] Second round turnout was 43%.

Results


Candidate		Running mate	Party	First round		Second round
Candidate		Running mate	Party	Votes	%	Votes	%
	Georgi Parvanov	Angel Marin	Bulgarian Socialist Party	1,780,119	64.05	2,050,488	75.95
	Volen Siderov	Pavel Shopov [bg]	Attack	597,175	21.49	649,387	24.05
	Nedelcho Beronov	Yuliana Nikolova	Union of Democratic Forces	271,078	9.75
	Georgi Markov [bg]	Maria Ivanova	Order, Law and Justice	75,478	2.72
	Petar Beron	Stela Bankova	Independent	21,812	0.78
	Grigor Velev [bg]	Iordan Mutafchev	Аll in One Bulgaria	19,857	0.71
	Lyuben Petrov [bg]	Neli Topalova	Independent	13,854	0.50
Total				2,779,373	100.00	2,699,875	100.00

Valid votes				2,779,373	97.29	2,699,875	97.91
Invalid/blank votes				77,374	2.71	57,560	2.09
Total votes				2,856,747	100.00	2,757,435	100.00
Registered voters/turnout				6,477,126	44.11	6,469,224	42.62
Source: Electoral Commission of Bulgaria