BULGARIA: Bulgaria's left-wing president Georgi Parvanov has won a second five-year term with a landslide victory over a nationalist who opposed EU entry next year, an exit poll has shown.
Mr Parvanov won 78-80 per cent of the votes in a second-round ballot, national radio reported, citing an exit survey from state polling agency NPOC.
Far behind, with 20-22 per cent, was Volen Siderov, leader of the nationalist Ataka party, who diplomats and analysts said campaigned on an anti-minority platform not compatible with the EU.
"We won because we were better, the result was expected," Mr Parvanov told journalists after the exit poll. "It is what we had forecast based on our campaign and that people would appreciate what we have done so far."
Despite the clear outcome, the election has exposed a patchy reform record under Mr Parvanov and it forced him to fend off criticism that he has failed to push governments to tackle high-level graft and organised crime.
The president won the first round with 64 per cent, but turnout was below the 50 per cent needed for him to avoid a run-off for the mostly ceremonial post.
With limited powers such as vetoing laws and appointing cabinets, he casts himself as "president of all Bulgarians".
However, political analysts say his victory will help consolidate power for the Socialist-led coalition he helped create after a divisive 2005 general election.
Mr Parvanov (49) led the Socialists' conversion from an old-school communist party to a more European model and has won wide approval for improving Bulgaria's image on its path to Nato membership and its invitation to join the EU on January 1st, 2007.
However, voter frustration was high.
The survey, taken an hour before polls closed at 7pm, said turnout was about 35 per cent, below the 42.5 per cent in the first round on October 22nd. Although economic growth is expected to reach 6 per cent this year, nominal average wages of €160 a month will be the EU's lowest, and the country has made little progress tackling corruption and gangland crime.
The challenger, Mr Siderov, has rejected charges of xenophobia, but has railed against Bulgaria's large Roma and ethnic Turkish minorities.
He toned down his anti-EU stance ahead of the vote but his party accused Mr Parvanov, the Socialists and their ethnic Turkish allies of corruption and said its result was a strong signal to Bulgaria's political elite.
"We are the winners. "The attack continues. We have struck an irreversible blow to the political mafia," said Mr Siderov's deputy leader and vice-presidential candidate Pavel Shopov.