2023 Bulgarian local elections

Local elections in Bulgaria were held on 29 October 2023. Mayors and municipal councillors across the country were elected.

Electoral system

The elections to Bulgaria's municipal councils are conducted via proportional representation with an open list preferential voting system.

The mayoral elections take place within the context of a majoritarian two-round system. The first round of the elections will be held on 29 October. If no candidate in a given constituency manages to gain 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held for that constituency in the second round on 5 November.

Voting is officially mandatory, but in practice there is no punishment for failing to vote and the law itself isn't strictly enforced.

Voters further have the option to vote against all proposed candidates.

Contesting parties

Name			Ideology	Position	Leader(s)	2023 result
						Votes (%)	Seats
	BND	Bulgarian New Democracy	Conservative liberalism	Centre-right	Valery Timov	DNP	0 / 240
	Svoboda	Freedom	Bulgarian nationalism	Right-wing	Vladimir Simenov	DNP	0 / 240
	Zelenite	Party of the Greens (Bulgaria)	Green Politics Anti-corruption	Syncretic	Vladimir Simenov	Together (Bulgaria)	0 / 240
	DD	Direct Democracy (Bulgaria)	Direct democracy	Syncretic	Petar Klisarov	DNP	0 / 240
	DnG	Movement for Our Cities	Local politics	Centre	Atanas Kalchev	DNP	0 / 240
	Volya	Volya	Bulgarian nationalism Right-wing populism	Right-wing	Veselin Mareshki	DNP	0 / 240
	Revival	Revival	Ultranationalism Russophilia	Far-right	Kostadin Kostadinov	13.58	37 / 240
	DPS	Movement for Rights and Freedoms	Turkish Minority interests Liberalism	Centre	Mustafa Karadayi	13.18	36 / 240
	Euroma	Euroroma	Romani Minority interests	Centre	Tsvetalin Kanchev	DNP	0 / 240
	BSD	Bulgarian Social Democrats	Social democracy	Centre-left	Georgi Atanasov Mariya Dobreva	DNP	0 / 240
	BSDE	Bulgarian Social Democracy -Euro Left	Social democracy	Centre-left	Aleksandar Tomov	0.10	0 / 240
	SDS	Union of Democratic Forces	Christian democracy Conservatism	Centre-right	Rumen Hristov	(GERB-SDS)	2 / 240
	KOD	Conservative Union of the Right	National conservatism Right-wing populism	Right-wing	Petar Moskov	0.29	0 / 240
	VMRO	VMRO – Bulgarian National Movement	National conservatism Bulgarian nationalism	Right-wing to far-right	Angel Dzhambazki	DNP	0 / 240

Local coalitions

Name			Location	Ideology
					Leader(s)
	RzSR	Development for Septemvri and the Region	Septemvri	Local politics	Radoslav Lyutakov
	UP	Union for Plovdiv	Plovdiv	Local politics Centre-right	Yevelin Paraskov Veselin Kozarev

Mayorship of Sofia

See also: 2023 Sofia mayoral election

The election for the position of Mayor of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital and largest city, is expected to be hotly contested and will result in a new mayor being elected, as incumbent mayor Yordanka Fandakova from GERB has announced she will not seek re-election.

Opinion polls for Mayor of Sofia

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample	Vasil Terziev			Anton Hekimyan		Dean Nikolov	Vanya Grigorova		Vili Lilkov	Others	None of the above	Lead
			PP	DB	SS	GERB	SDS	Revival	BSP	Levitsata!
ЕСТАТ	29.09-9.10 2023	800	27.8			18.7			20.6		6.4					7.2
CAM	21–25 Jul 2023	1,212	33.4			22.7		12.0	10.6		4.8			7.9	2.7	10.7

Results

First round

According to Central Election Commission the number of people who voted on 29 October totaled 2,713,979 or 44.94% of eligible voters. The turnout was 49.76% in the 2019 local elections. The invalid ballots in the 29 October, 2023 elections totaled over half a million, including 412,711 ballots for municipal councilors, 94,195 for municipality mayor (down from 128,204 in 2019) and 34,235 for mayoralty mayor.

In general, GERB had the strongest showing throughout the country, although the party failed to make it to the second round in the capital.

Second round

Overall, GERB won 11 regional towns, PP–DB won four, and the Bulgarian Socialist party won three. Of the largest four cities, PP-DB won in the capital (Sofia) and Varna while GERB won in Plovdiv and Burgas.