Slavcho Atanasov

Plovdiv residents have elected the current governor, who is from GERB, as the new mayor. 57.1% of voters voted for Zdravko Dimitrov. 37.3 percent of Plovdiv's ballots were in favour of his opponent, Slavcho Atanasov, 

The CEC published the results of the first-round local elections in the country with 100% tally sheets processed.

There are still protocols in Sofia and Shumen:

There will be second round of local election in Bulgaria's second largest city of Plovdiv as well, BNT reported.

A Bulgarian nationalist party has said it will contest mayoral election results in the city of Plovdiv over "violations". 

Plovdiv's incumbent mayor Ivan Totev has won a second term in office, after a night of uncertainty as vote count suggested he and rival Slavcho Atanasov was running neck-to-neck.

With 100% of the voter protocols having been counted, Totev has 50.78% of ballots 1 lead of 1502 votes.

Average voter activity in the run-off vote of Bulgaria's local elections was about 21.17% as of 13:00 EET on Sunday, election authorities have said.

This marks a sharp rise with the 8.7% nationally as of 10:00 EET, election authorities have said.

A run-off vote of Bulgaria's local elections is being held in 1128 villages, towns and cities across the country on Sunday.

In 970 of them voters are picking mayor, while others are to elect district or municipal mayors.

According to the latest exit polls, run-offs for the mayors of the cities of Plovdiv, Shumen and Vidin are likely to take place as no candidate garnered more than 50 % of the votes at the first round of the local elections, which took place in Bulgaria on Sunday.

The parties constituting Bulgaria's ruling coalition are divided over the Finance Ministry's proposal for a new debt amounting to BGN 16 B, which is to be voted in Parliament later on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov held consultations with the four parties supporting the coalition government - GERB, RB, PF and ABV, private bTV station reports.