"East-West Divide". Will Bulgaria's "new Orban" win the elections?

Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

"Progressive Bulgaria", according to various polls, could receive 30-40% of the voter's votes. This is more than any other party, although it was formed only a few weeks before the elections.

Besides it, at least four other parties have a real chance of entering the new parliament. The leaders of two of them — "Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria" (GERB) and the "Movement for Rights and Freedoms" (DPS) — were suspected of corruption.

Among the likely candidates for parliament is also the "Revival" party, whose leader Kostadin Kostadinov has repeatedly traveled to Russia, most recently in November 2025. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), also referred to as pro-Russian, also has a chance to overcome the 4% barrier.

The current elections are a direct result of the political crisis at the end of 2025. At that time, the country saw the largest protests in the last 10 years. They began as demonstrations against the 2026 budget but quickly turned into protests against the entire political system and corruption. In December, the government resigned, and the president had to appoint a caretaker cabinet.

Bulgarian politics has remained fragmented for five years: no single force can consolidate power, and Bulgarians often don't know the incumbent prime minister by name, as political scientist Ivan Krastev noted back in 2024 in a column in the Financial Times.

According to Oleg Bondarenko, director of the Russian Foundation for Progressive Politics and an expert on Eastern European countries, this is due to the crisis of the country's political system: "Bulgaria truly has a long-standing deficit of trust in politicians and a deficit of strong politicians... And this merry-go-round of prime ministers is precisely connected to that."

Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic. The National Assembly, a unicameral parliament with 240 deputies, adopts laws, approves the government, and can remove it from power at any time. The stability of the government depends on whether parties manage to form a working coalition. The president remains an important figure, but mainly during times of crisis: he does not govern the country directly but can appoint a caretaker government if parties cannot agree.

"For many years, two fault lines have existed, complicating the formation of a ruling majority in parliament. One is corruption and anti-corruption, and the other is the geopolitical East-West line," Bulgarian political analyst Veselin Stoynev explains to the BBC.

When a new force emerges on the anti-corruption front, attempts to reach an agreement with old parties lead to a loss of voter trust. That is why it will be difficult for Radev's "Progressive Bulgaria" to form a coalition with anyone.

Bulgaria is called one of the most corrupt countries in the EU. Radev himself resigned as president in 2025, a year before the end of his second term. Officially, he stated that he wanted to participate more actively in the country's political life and fight corruption.

Radev is a well-known Eurosceptic who criticized the introduction of the euro in the country from January 1, 2026, without a referendum. He consistently opposed increasing military aid to Ukraine, stating that "there is no military solution to this conflict," and recently declared that "the Bulgarian people do not perceive Russia as an enemy, regardless of the screen propaganda of impostors."

He also spoke about the need to "restore dialogue with Russia," especially since "Bulgaria is in a unique position, being the only EU member state that is both Slavic and Eastern Orthodox."

Radev's popularity, according to Bondarenko, is largely due to the fact that during his presidency he did not join any party and thus maintained the image of a figure "above the fray": "And it is precisely thanks to this that after so many years of presidency, this politician did not squander, as is often the case, his credit of trust, but rather earned and strengthened it."

The last truly popular prime minister was Boyko Borisov, who lost his position after months of anti-corruption protests in 2020-21, which erupted due to accusations of corruption and conspiracy with Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev.

His center-right and pro-European coalition GERB-SDS is expected to take second place in the upcoming elections (around 20% of the votes). The nationalist pro-Russian "Revival" party will, in all likelihood, lose part of its electoral base and receive about 5% of the votes.

If the results of opinion polls are confirmed, Radev will need to either enter into a coalition to gain a parliamentary majority or form a less stable minority government.

Since he positions himself as a fighter against corruption, an alliance with GERB-SDS and DPS makes it toxic for him. But even a coalition with "Revival", which holds similar positions on a number of issues — primarily in its criticism of aid to Ukraine — is unlikely to change the situation.

Thus, Bulgaria again risks returning to the familiar scenario of recent years: a weak minority government or another snap election. The second option may prove less advantageous for Radev, as it would be more difficult to repeat such a result.

Corruption and the Introduction of the Euro

At the end of 2025, Bulgarians protested against rising taxes, corruption, and the influence of big business on political decision-making. These problems have not disappeared and remain present now.

Before the elections, there is active discussion on Bulgarian social networks that the introduction of the euro from January 1, 2026, has led to price increases. This is one of the important narratives of the current election campaign, noted analyst Vasil Velichkov from the Bulgarian monitoring company Sensika in a conversation with the BBC.

Veselin Stoynev confirms this: "According to sociological surveys, prices concern people the most. And it's interesting here that politicians – almost all parties without exception – do not provide a clear answer to this. Moreover, they don't even properly discuss this problem, although it is what worries voters the most... There are also internal reasons for this. Even before the introduction of the euro, a law was adopted in Bulgaria limiting "unjustified" price increases. However, due to vague wording and weak control, many traders began to raise prices in advance so that they could lower them later if necessary. As a result, price increases began even before the transition to the euro and continued after it, despite formal restrictions."

"For Radev, this is an additional resource: he offers a simple explanation — "the euro is to blame" or insufficient government measures. However, if he comes to power, solving this problem will be much more difficult than explaining it during the campaign," the analyst continues."

The Ukrainian factor became one of the central themes of the campaign after Bulgarian Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, appointed by the president, signed a ten-year cooperation agreement, including in the military sphere, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Kyiv on March 30.

Formally, the document was ready back in 2024, and in fact, it consolidates already existing cooperation, but many disputes arose about why it was done without parliamentary approval. However, as Factcheck.bg emphasized, none of the 22 EU countries that concluded a similar agreement with Ukraine put it through parliament.

The narrative that aid to Ukraine allegedly drags Bulgaria into the war is actively used on social networks before the elections, including in the accounts of Radev's supporters, the analytical company Sensika told the BBC. "If Bulgaria helps Ukraine and takes a clear pro-European stance, it will lead to our involvement in the war... and finally, bang — Bulgarians will find themselves on the front in Ukraine," describes Vasil Velichkov.

Radev met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Sofia in 2023. At that time, he stated that there was "no military solution" to the conflict and that the focus should be on diplomacy, while Zelenskyy insisted on continued military support and directly urged Bulgaria to increase aid.

Public rhetoric in Bulgaria diverges from the country's real role in supporting Kyiv, in particular, arms exports to Ukraine continued even when authorities officially disavowed it, Stoynev adds. This was done indirectly, through Poland and other countries, and according to various estimates, the Bulgarian military industry received about 7 billion leva (approximately 3.6 billion euros) from this in 2024.

Bulgaria has indeed participated in supporting Kyiv from the very beginning: since the start of the war, 13 packages of military and humanitarian aid have been sent. Details of military supplies remain classified, but in the summer of 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that at the beginning of the war, Bulgaria supplied Ukraine with almost a third of the weapons it needed.

These supplies are likely to continue: in the autumn of 2025, Sofia signed an agreement with the German arms giant Rheinmetall for the construction of a gunpowder and ammunition production plant in Bulgaria, which could open this year.

Energy also proved to be an inconvenient topic in the current elections: after 2022, Bulgaria reduced its dependence on Russian energy carriers, but at the same time tried to maintain channels for cooperation. Thus, Russian gas now flows through the country via the Russian-Turkish TurkStream pipeline to Serbia and other European countries.

In 2023, Bulgaria signed a controversial contract with the Turkish state company BOTAS: formally, it was supposed to help diversify supplies after the cessation of Gazprom imports, but in practice, it maintained the possibility of Russian-origin gas flowing through Turkey.

In the nuclear sphere, the break is also not happening quickly: the last delivery of Russian fuel for the Kozloduy NPP took place in 2025, and a full transition to alternative suppliers is expected by 2027.

For decades, the Bulgarian elite has tried to combine moving towards the West with an unwillingness to openly go against Moscow, explains Veselin Stoynev about this duality.

It is not yet clear whether Radev will actively influence arms supplies and energy contracts. Western and Russian media have repeatedly compared him to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who consistently maintained special relations with Moscow and blocked aid to Ukraine at the EU level. For example, Politico named Radev among possible "main EU rebels" to replace Orban. But experts interviewed by the BBC doubt that Radev will be able to play this role.

"I believe that Radev will try to become a "new Orban" in some sense, but only in terms of a more pro-Russian orientation. At the same time, he lacks the resources to build such a model. Orban created his system for many years, which requires enormous resources and essentially a capture of the state, which Radev, at least verbally, opposes," the expert believes.

More radical pro-Russian forces, primarily the "Revival" party, are losing ground according to polls. It is possible that some of their voters have switched to Radev.

This does not mean that the pro-Russian sentiment has disappeared. Stoynev describes it as a deeper and older historical inertia: "There is a silent majority that is pro-Russian — this is a very old, stable tradition."

What Influences the Elections

Russian influence on the elections in Bulgaria is unlikely, asserts expert Oleg Bondarenko, who lives in Russia. According to his data, only one other person besides Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova currently works at the Russian embassy.

Other experts do not venture to speak of direct Russian interference in these elections, but they do note pro-Russian narratives in the election campaign.

Back in 2024, a network of websites distributing pro-Russian content ceased operations in Bulgaria, researcher Dimitar Vatsev told the BBC. According to Vasil Velichkov, resources remain in the country that systematically promote pro-Russian narratives, including translated publications from Russian analytical centers. In some cases, he adds, coordination is visible literally by the second: the same material with identical content appears simultaneously on 18 websites at the exact same minute.

The main candidate parties are not noticed in this regard, but Sensika believes that rival parties — "Progressive Bulgaria," DPS, and the populist "There Is Such a People" party — coordinate actions on social networks. Moreover, the "There Is Such a People" party allegedly uses bots, writes Factcheck.bg.

Campaigns in support of candidates in these elections, as a rule, do not go through official party channels, but through a gray area of affiliated accounts, groups, pages, and pseudo-media that supposedly support candidates and parties, asserts Velichkov. The largest volume of such resources, according to Sensika, belongs to "Progressive Bulgaria" and Radev. In some cases, accounts of local sales groups, for example, for auto parts, or openly pro-Russian accounts in the past, were used, noted the Bulgarian publication "Svobodna Tochka".

Павялічыць

A new report by Sensika and the Balkan Free Media Initiative states that some groups supporting Radev were previously dedicated to Russian-Bulgarian friendship

According to Vasil Velichkov, after the publication of the Sensika TikTokcracy report in early March 2026, TikTok deleted a number of accounts related to DPS, and on Facebook, "the reach of a number of accounts whose content is related to "Progressive Bulgaria," DPS, and GERB, decreased by 50-60%."

In a Facebook post four days before the vote, Radev, without naming names, criticized "some fabricated NGOs" that "spread signals about social networks directed against "Progressive Bulgaria.""

Nevertheless, Sensika writes that the manipulations are distributed across the entire political spectrum and are internal in nature — in scale, they are far from Romania, where election results were annulled.

Besides social networks, there are other risk factors. Firstly, the absence of machine voting: votes in the country are counted manually, which can lead to manipulations.

Also, some polling stations outside the EU were reduced, including in Turkey, the UK, and the USA, where a significant Bulgarian diaspora resides.

The problem of voter bribery also persists. The Ministry of Interior of Bulgaria, during this election campaign, as the publication "Capital" writes, confiscated more than 1 million euros intended for buying votes. This amounts to approximately 25 thousand votes — equivalent to 3-4 mandates in the National Assembly.

A much more serious problem remains not direct bribery, but the use of administrative resources. For example, as Stoynev recounts, one of the new schemes of manipulation is: "In a small settlement, a person buys groceries at a store and pays nothing for them. The seller then receives money for this, but pays nothing to the client." Stoynev calls this "special relations": in fact, firms supporting a certain party pay for the groceries.

Previously, as the expert recounted, people were bribed with canning jar lids, which were once in short supply, and popular meat semi-finished products in Bulgaria. This problem is most prevalent among people living below the poverty line.

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