Progressive Bulgaria, the party led by former President Rumen Radev, has won a landslide victory in Bulgaria’s general elections, official results showed on Monday.
After the counting was completed, the party got 44.6% votes. This means Radev’s party is on track to win about 130 seats in the 240-seat parliament.
This represents a better-than-expected performance and appears to be one of the largest parliamentary mandates received by any party in recent years.
Progressive Bulgaria finished well ahead of the pro-European We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition and the long-dominant center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, or GERB, party led by former Prime Minister Boyko Borisovts.
Both the EU and Russia welcomed Ruman Radev’s election victory
Radev has called for renewed relations with Russia and is known as a critic of the European Union. His election was welcomed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said on Monday that Russia was “impressed by Mr. Radev’s statements.”
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen also congratulated him. “Bulgaria is a proud member of the European family and plays an important role in addressing our common challenges,” he said in a post on Twitter. He also said he was “looking forward to working together.”
What to know about Bulgaria’s general elections
The snap vote followed the resignation of the Conservative-led government amid nationwide anti-corruption protests last December.
Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, has been in the grip of a political crisis since 2021, when the conservative government of Boyko Borissov was toppled amid anti-corruption rallies.
Bulgaria is also a member of NATO. It joined the eurozone on 1 January, shortly after entering the border-free Schengen travel area.
The voting held on Sunday was the eighth election in five years. Many are hopeful that the outcome will end the country’s long-running political impasse.
“We will do everything possible to ensure that we are not allowed to go (to the polls) again. This is disastrous for Bulgaria,” Radev said after voting closed on Sunday.
Who is Rumen Radev?
Progressive Bulgaria, a newly formed centre-left group led by former President Rumen Radev, was seen as the likely winner before the vote, although it was also projected to fall short of an absolute majority.
After casting his ballot on Sunday, Radev, 62, urged others to vote, saying mass voting was “the only way to drown vote-buying in the sea of free votes.”
Radev, a former air force general who was Bulgaria’s president for nine years before stepping down in January to run in elections, has pledged to fight the “oligarchic governance model” in the country.
He has also advocated for Bulgaria to renew ties with Russia, while criticizing military aid to Ukraine as it fights ongoing aggression by Moscow’s troops.
However, he has officially condemned Russia’s aggression and said that if elected he would not use his country’s veto to block EU aid to Kiev.
Radev also opposes the EU’s green energy policy, which he considers naive “in a world without rules”.
Borisov, who was pessimistic when casting his vote, later changed his tune
Voting in Banksia, on the outskirts of Sofia, on Sunday, former Prime Minister Borissov seemed less optimistic about his party’s prospects. He stressed that GERB would not join any coalition.
“I don’t see who we can form an alliance with,” Bulgaria’s national broadcaster quoted him as saying. The former prime minister said his party would serve as a constructive opposition and participate in issues related to geopolitics such as national defence.
However, later on Sunday he appeared more confident despite his party’s setback.
The GERB leader said, “Winning elections is one thing; governing is quite another. Elections decide who is in first place, but negotiations will decide who will govern. GERB can go into government and into opposition. And in politics, as in life, patience is needed.”
Borissov has served three terms as Prime Minister of Bulgaria. During the campaign, he highlighted the record of his GERB party, saying that this year it had “fulfilled the dream of the 1990s”, among other things, by admitting Bulgaria into the Eurozone.
Edited by: Sean Sinico and Wesley Dockery