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Bulgarians began voting on Sunday to choose the country’s next president in a highly contested election that could trigger political instability in the Black Sea state and push it towards closer ties with Russia.
Opinion polls show Tsetska Tsacheva, 58, the center-right GERB ruling party candidate, is likely to narrowly win the ballot but lose a subsequent runoff to Rumen Radev, 53, a Socialist Party ally who wants to end European Union sanctions against Moscow.
"The vote on Sunday will show whether we have the right to rule the country in the next two years," Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, GERB's leader, told supporters at the close of the campaign.
If Tsacheva does lose, Radev's Socialists and other opposition groupings could try to unseat the GERB party's minority government and trigger early parliamentary elections, observers say.
That would lead to months of political uncertainty and a further slowdown in reforms, much needed after the collapse of Bulgaria's fourth-largest bank and massive anti-corruption protests that helped GERB win parliamentary elections in 2014.
Public disappointment over the progress of reform eroded support for GERB, while Tsacheva is seen as lacking the charisma of Prime Minister Borisov.
"My choice is General Radev because he is a man of honor, who will work to revive the Bulgarian army and he will not be a servant of foreign countries," Georgi Danailov, 74, a retired military officer, said after casting his ballot in the Sofia district of Mladost.
Voting started at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and polls close at 8 p.m.
Latest opinion polls showed parliament speaker Tsacheva winning with 27.2 to 26.3 percent of the vote, against Radev's 22.5 to 23.1 percent.
moreatlink: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bu...-idUSKBN131001
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