Election of the weekend: Bulgaria

Bulgaria, known in some circles as the Peru of parliamentary regimes (NB: I just made that up), will hold its 7th snap election since 2021 on Sunday. All 240 seats in the national assembly will be elected via open list proportional representation across 31 districts, with a 4% threshold.

The last election produced an unwieldy coalition, which helps explain why we find ourselves here. The largest vote-getter, at 25% and 66 seats, was GERB-SDS, a coalition of two parties that can be characterized as center-right and strongly pro EU. The second list, We Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria, obtained 14% and 36 seats. They are also classified as center-right and pro-Europe. Next on our list we find Revival, and ultra-right anti-EU party, with 13% and 33 seats. Moving on down the list, we now come to the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning coalition, clocking in with 11% and 29 seats. This is, wait for it, a center/center-right pro-EU coalition, but one that caters to and attracts support from ethnic Turkish minority interests. Next on the list we find a coalition of the Bulgarian Socialist and the United Left, a socially conservative pro-Europe party with some vestigial social democratic tendencies, who managed to secure over 7% of the vote and 19 seats. Another center-right liberal Turkish party also clocks in at 7%/19. Next on the list is “There is such a people”, a personalist party organized around Slavi Trivonof, a television personality and singer of some renown with what appear to be dreadfully reactionary politics (6.5%, 17 seats). Rounding out the parties of parliament, we now come to “Morality Unity Honor,” which appears to be quite reactionary on pretty much any conceivable dimension (11 seats) and another right wing Euroskeptic party, Velichie, who needed a recount to just barely clear the 4% threshold and claim their 10 seats.

Who could have predicted that such a parliamentary result would not have resulted in a stable government? The 2024 election was vigorously contested, accusations of shenanigans were thrown around with reckless abandon, and eventually something vaguely resembling a government was formed. It was led by leading vote and seat getter GERM-SDS, the left coalition, and the weirdo Slavi Trivonof party, with some sort of confidence and supply arrangement was reached with the center-right Turkish minority party plus six independents. (In hindsight it’s somewhat impressive this government lasted nearly a year. The government formed officially in January 2025, and the PM resigned and called for elections in December, following mass protests around the country. This government did manage to muscle through a vote to join the Eurozone, which is in progress.

So, what’s next? The leading party going into this election is Progressive Bulgaria, polling at just over 30%, with the GERB-SDS coalition in second at around 20%. Progressive Bulgaria is lead by Rumen Radev, a former fighter pilot who served as Bulgaria’s president from 2017 until January, when he resigned to form a new party and run for parliament. In his two presidential elections, he solidly trounced the GERB candidate in the second round with 59 and 67%, respectively. Radev elevated the presidency to a significantly more prominent role early in his tenure, feuding with and publicly attacking conservative PM Boyko Borisov and vetoing various legislation seemingly just to make his life difficult.

Any “well at least he’s kinda-sorta on the left” cope about the likely next PM in Bulgaria should probably be tempered:

Top gun, commander-in-chief of the Air Force, two-time president, and now, in all likelihood, the next winner of Bulgaria’s snap general elections on April 19. Rumen Radev, who, with less than a week to go before the election, is predicted by most polls to be the clear winner of the country’s eighth snap elections in just five years, is a man who enjoys leading, regardless of the challenges he decides to take on.

After a long wait, in early 2026 the former head of state decided to end his second presidential term early, create his own political project called “Progressive Bulgaria,” and present himself to the electorate promising to put an end to the long period of political instability that has gripped Bulgaria since the global pandemic, a period that has inexorably consumed leaders and movements, quickly fading after a brief period of glory.

Radev hopes to succeed where others have failed and become the new center of gravity of Bulgarian politics, promising a relentless fight against corruption, an economic policy capable of protecting the weakest classes from inflation, but also a less Euro-enthusiastic conservative approach, all while winking at a possible détente with the Russian Federation. Enough to make some fear the specter of a new Orbán in the heart of the EU, just when the original one was soundly defeated in the Hungarian parliamentary elections.

“Radev is the first politician to successfully transition from the presidency to his own political project in parliament, a move many before him had attempted in vain. He does so with the profile of a determined and moderately nationalist politician, even if his latest campaign statements reveal a more extreme and less reassuring Radev,” Anna Krasteva, professor of Political Science at Sofia’s Nov Balgarski University, commented for OBCT.

During his two presidential terms, Radev, who ran for office the first time with the support of the Socialist Party, has carved out an increasingly independent space for himself. He has acquired room for power and maneuver thanks to the country’s long years of political crisis, in which he has been able to play an active role, for example by appointing numerous technical executives, his prerogative as head of state.

“What has most characterized Radev’s presidential term in domestic politics has been his consistent line of opposition and balancing the figure of Boyko Borisov, who in recent years has represented, even symbolically, political power in Bulgaria,” emphasizes political scientist Dimitar Ganev, founder of the sociological agency “Trend.”

This line has led the two leaders to repeated moments of conflict, even violent ones. Such was the case in 2019, when Radev’s staunch opposition to the appointment of the new Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev, sponsored by Borisov, led to anti-government protests in the streets and the arrest of several members of the presidential administration.

In foreign policy, the most controversial aspects have been Radev’s positions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: while officially condemning the Kremlin’s aggression, Radev has unhesitatingly opposed military aid to Kyiv and has supported the need for a way out of the conflict through the reopening of dialogue with Moscow. A stance that — in the summer of 2023 — led him to a direct and highly emotional confrontation with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyi during the latter’s official visit to Sofia.

Over the years, Radev has repeatedly considered throwing down the gauntlet to Borisov and his GERB movement. Ultimately, he was convinced by the disastrous fall of the Zhelyazkov government, Borisov’s last political creation, buried last winter by the largest street protests in decades. These protests shook Bulgaria, from the capital Sofia to smaller towns, bringing hundreds of thousands of people, including countless young ones, to a standstill against corruption and nepotism.

The demonstrations were primarily promoted by the liberal and reformist “Continue the Change” movement, but it is Radev who could reap the benefits of the protests. After resigning as president, the former head of state has worked tirelessly to fill the ranks of his “Progressive Bulgaria.” Three main types of candidates have entered the electoral lists of ‘Progressive Bulgaria’. On the one hand, members of the presidential administration; on the other, officials who participated in the numerous technical governments appointed by Rade in recent years,” Ganev outlines. “Lastly, there were many representatives who gravitated towards the Socialist Party.”

If you’re confident in what the coming Radev administration will look like in power, you’re probably overestimating your predictive capacity. This could go in all kinds of different directions. Many describe his Russophile tendencies in somewhat more alarming terms than those stated in the quoted story above.