Turnout Rising in Bulgaria's Presidential Runoff

More people have cast ballots in the runoff vote on Sunday morning than in the first round of Bulgaria's presidential elections, officials say.

As of 10:00 local time (EET), 10.59% of eligible voters have taken part in the election, slighly up compared to last Sunday, when the activity was 10.23%.

The current turnout translates into 724 059 voters as of that hour, the Central Election Commission (CEC)'s spokesperson Tsvetozar Tomov has told the Bulgarian National Television.

Tomov has made clear it is early to say where the final activity will go just three hours into Election Day.

The figure, however, is considerably lower than the 13.45% turnout on October 30, 2011, when the last presidential runoff took place.

Southern Bulgaria's Haskovo has seen the highest turnout as of 10:00 (14.12%), followed by Sofia-region (13.81). The region of Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city, had the lowest turnout (6.24%) as of that hour.