Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov was re-elected in a run-off election against Volen Siderov, leader of the nationalist Attack party, Bulgaria's Central Electoral Commission announced on Monday.

Parvanov's re-election strengthened the dominant position of his Socialist Party in Bulgaria's governmental institutions, ahead of its accession to the EU on Jan. 1, 2007.

Parvanov, a former leader of the Socialist Party, was first elected president in 2001 for a five-year term, and took office in 2002.

During his first five-year term as president of the Balkan country, Parvanov managed to smooth the ties of his ruling Socialist Party with other political parties, expand his sway over domestic affairs and established his authority among the Bulgarian people, which creates a favorable condition for his re-election as well as for his governance in the years to come.

Parvanov, however, is still faced with enormous challenges in his second five-year term.

First, he needs to raise people's confidence in the future of the country. Bulgarian voters fell short of due confidence in the country's politics, and cold-shouldered such major political events as the presidential election, as was reflected by the low turnout in the presidential election.

According to the statistics released by the Central Electoral Commission, the voter turnout stood at a low level of about 41.21 percent in the run-off election. The figure, however, read 42.51 percent in the first round, lower than the minimum of 50 percent required for a new president to be elected.

In the past five years, there has been some improvement in the living standards of ordinary Bulgarians, but the country is still afflicted with critical social problems, including the widening disparity between the rich and the poor, as well as organized crime and government corruptions. These problems dissatisfied the voters most.

Second, the opposition still play a considerable role in Bulgaria's political arena.

After the final results came out, right-wing leader Ivan Kostov said Bulgaria's democratic forces suffered a huge loss and were plunged into the lowest ebb. But they would not cease their efforts to re-emerge as new political forces after their reshuffle.

The presence of an ultra-nationalist hardliner Volen Siderov in the presidential run-off could be deemed as a grave threat to the ruling Socialist party. Sierov said late on Sunday that his nationalist Attack party was the new and only opposition to the ruling political establishment.

Moreover, the redistribution of political power in the three-party Socialist-led centre-left coalition government and the issues regarding ethnic Turks and Gypsies will also pose a huge challenge to the new president.

Source: Xinhua