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The parliamentary elections held in Bulgaria on April 19, 2026, marked the final stage in resolving a prolonged political crisis that began with mass anti-government protests in 2020. And it marks the nadir of the parliamentary left in Bulgaria’s post-socialist history. Former president Rumen Radev achieved a landslide victory with 44,6% of the vote with his new political party “Progressive Bulgaria,” securing an absolute majority in parliament. The party’s name notwithstanding, it is difficult to define the winning coalition’s ideological position. Some argue it occupies the space vacated by the traditional left, as the majority of its supporters are former leftist voters. Radev’s geopolitical orientation is also unclear. Critics from the Euro-Atlantic spectrum have labelled him a Putinist, warning that he will pull Bulgaria closer to Russia. Conversely, conservative Russophile parties claim the opposite - that Radev is a NATO general seeking „deeper integration into the EU.” In any case, there is little „progressive“ or leftist about Progressive Bulgaria’s platform; it is right-wing and technocratic in character.
Megi Popova is a lecturer in Political Philosophy at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” and member of the Institute for Critical Theories of Supermodernity (ICTS). She is also the creator and host of the political podcast "Utopia Distopia".
Five Years of Political Crisis
The absolute majority secured by Radev marks an end to 5 years of political upheaval, which were dominated by a series of unstable government coalitions, regular mass protests, and frequent ideological realignments. This tumultuous phase was inaugurated during the COVID-19 pandemic as major protests erupted against the government, led by prime minister Boyko Borisov of the Citizens for European Development Party (GERB). GERB is a center-right party, wed to the Euro-Atlantic consensus, and was the dominant political force in Bulgaria for almost two decades. Borisov was the country’s prime minister from 2009 to 2013 and again from 2014 to 2021, making him the longest-serving prime minister of the post-communist era.
The immediate reason for the protests was that the GERB government’s state prosecutor carried out a controversial raid on president Rumen Radev’s office, on allegations of corruption. Running as an independent with support of the main opposition, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), former air force officer Radev had beaten GERB’s candidate in the election for president in 2016. In office, Radev became a vocal critic of Borisov’s administration, even vetoing GERB legislative proposals.
Boyko Borisov’s resignation inaugurated five years of political instability; eight parliamentary elections were held between 2021 and 2026.
Protests against this politically motivated raid quickly formed in front of the presidential administration building on Independence Square in the center of Sofia. President Radev then went out to join the demonstrators gathered there, appearing among them with a raised fist. Over their decade of rule, GERB had repeatedly faced mass protests over corruption allegations. The main slogan of the 2020 protests was “Mafia out!”, as it had been in previous rounds of protest. But this time, the protest movement was more heterogeneous, bringing together both the liberal urban right and various left-wing groups
Six months after the protest began, Boyko Borisov resigned. His resignation inaugurated five years of political instability; eight parliamentary elections were held between 2021 and 2026. GERB won the first in this series of elections in April 2021, but was unable to form a government. The second election in July 2021 was won by There Is Such a People (ITN), a populist, anti-establishment party with a generally conservative and right-wing orientation, led by a TV host. ITN also failed to form a government. The third election in November 2021 was won by We Continue the Change (PP), a liberal, pro-European and anti-corruption (read: anti-establishment) party, led by politicians previously promoted by Rumen Radev in caretaker governments.
Under Bulgaria’s constitution, when parliament fails to form a government, the president appoints a so-called caretaker cabinet. In these situations, the president is formally tasked with organizing elections. Technically the president is the head of state, but the position is supposed to be a purely symbolic function with limited executive power. But critics argue that Radev used the governments he installed to expand presidential power during the crisis when the country lurched from election to election. After the 2020 raids on his office, many had expected Radev to resign as president and enter electoral politics, but he remained in office until early 2026, nominally above the fray.
Most parties during this period aimed to form an anti-corruption majority excluding conservative GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) - a liberal, centrist party which traditionally represents Bulgaria’s Turkish minority, but is frequently associated with corruption. After liberal, anti-establishment party PP’s victory, they formed a coalition government with Democratic Bulgaria (DB; a right-wing and pro-European alliance), the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and the populist ITN. This coalition collapsed within six months after ITN withdrew its support for reasons that remain a mystery to most observers. GERB then won the October 2022 elections but failed to form a government, leading to another vote in April 2023. By then, the political narrative had shifted under external geopolitical pressure, particularly the war in Ukraine, which strengthened the domestic emphasis on the need for a stable Euro-Atlantic government aligned with the EU and NATO. The liberal PP and right-wing DB merged into a joint pro-European coalition (PP-DB), combining their overlapping electorates.
In the 2023 elections, GERB re-emerged as the leading force in Bulgarian politics. In the context of the war in Ukraine, GERB and PP-DB formed a Euro-Atlantic coalition government. This might have come as a surprise to most voters: The PP-DB alliance had built its political identity on its opposition to GERB, accusing the conservatives of corruption and a “mafia” model of governance. Entering into coalition with GERB therefore significantly damaged PP-DB’s credibility. At the same time, the Euro-Atlantic government coalition drew on support from centrist party DPS to pass a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s and thus Radev's power to appoint caretaker governments. Despite this success in the intra-instutional power struggle between prime minister and president, the GERB-PP-DB government collapsed after less than a year.
In the June and October 2024 election, GERB was confirmed as the largest party, but could only form a minority coalition government with the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the populist ITN. This was not enough however; the government was also dependent on parliamentary support from smaller splinter parties. A few months after it formed, the ruling coalition drew on votes from minority party DPS to pass laws in parliament, outraging large parts of the electorate. DPS had come under the control of Delyan Peevski, a politician sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act, a US sanctions law targeting Russian allies, and a central figure in Bulgaria’s oligarchic networks. Peevski’s involvement triggered yet another wave of protests. Yet, with these maneuvers the GERB-led minority coalition managed to survive long enough to secure its primary policy goal: Bulgaria’s 2026 ascension to the Eurozone.
The Mass Protests of December 2025
In late 2025 growing public anger culminated in the largest protests Bulgaria had seen since the 1990s. Once again, the slogans were familiar: down with corruption, the mafia, state capture. Like the protests in 2020, those in the winter of 2025 were dominated by young people, making Generation Z the face of the protests. The protests attracted significant attention from international media and observers.
Although initially mobilized by the PP-DB coalition, Independence Square quickly filled with the entire anti-status quo spectrum: pro-European liberals, nationalists, left-wing activists, and right-wing voters. What united these groups was a shared demand: a decisive break with corruption, oligarchic power, and the entrenched political model that had reigned in Bulgaria since the end of socialism.
This is one of the central paradoxes of Eastern Europe: the political right has effectively claimed the language of the future, while the future itself has been framed as catching up with Western Europe and deepening integration into the European Union.
The trigger for this, however, was paradoxical. The immediate cause of the protests was the GERB-led coalition’s proposed budget, which included higher salaries for public sector workers and an increase in the dividend tax from 5% to 10%. This allowed certain actors to frame the protests as right-wing; not as a demand for redistribution, but for fiscal restraint, less spending, less debt, and no tax increases. To understand this contradiction - whether young people in Bulgaria are in fact “right-wing” - one has to look at the legacy of Bulgaria’s transition and the broader political culture of Eastern Europe.
Post-Communist Legacies
Since the early 1990s, most large-scale protests in Bulgaria have been anti-government and anti-establishment, initially directed against the former ruling communist party and later against its successor, the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Because socialism was associated with the left, opposition movements during the transition automatically defined themselves as right-wing. Over time, the ideas of reform, progress, and even everyday dissent became closely associated with the political right. Meanwhile, left-wing voters - particularly those aligned with the BSP - became increasingly oriented toward the past, marked more by nostalgia for the stability of socialism than by a forward-looking political project. This is one of the central paradoxes of Eastern Europe: the political right has effectively claimed the language of the future, while the future itself has been framed as catching up with Western Europe and deepening integration into the European Union.
As the transition period ended, large protests, especially in Sofia, became increasingly depoliticized. They were not driven by concrete policy demands, but by opposition to corruption and the “mafia” - issues that operate at a pre-political level. When political conflict is framed not as left versus right, but as corruption versus anti-corruption or status quo versus change, the underlying ideological consensus remains intact - a broadly right-wing, capitalist model that is not called into question. Corruption is treated as a distortion of capitalism, not as something that capitalism itself produces. Anti-corruption politics targets abuses of power without challenging the capitalist system itself.
The protests of late 2025 followed the same pattern. They were not mobilized around a clear alternative, but against “the model” - understood primarily as a model of corruption rather than a broader political or economic system. Generation Z became highly visible and politically active, but much of this energy was absorbed into existing political narratives. Young activists, even when organized through structures associated primarily with the PP-DB coalition, often repeated familiar slogans rather than articulating new ideological positions. Nevertheless, Gen Z in Bulgaria is - in many cases - more socially and economically left-leaning than older generations. Still, younger voters do not see the Bulgarian Socialist Party as a viable political vehicle. As a result, many left-leaning young people have gravitated toward PP-DB, a liberal, center-right formation. At the same time, election data suggests that a significant share of voters aged 18–30 supported Radev’s political project.
Eroding Living Standards
Following the second major wave of protests, GERB resigned in late 2025, bringing down the government on the eve of Bulgaria’s planned entry into the eurozone. The central question returned: would Rumen Radev resign as President to enter the political stage? The long-awaited move happened on January 19 of this year, when Radev announced his early resignation to run in the upcoming elections. Many analysts and citizens were ecstatic, framing Radev as a new Messiah. This savior narrative is not new to Bulgarian politics; it is grounded in the many disappointments that came with the transition to capitalism. GERB’s Boyko Borisov himself originally rose to power as a savior promising to fight corruption.
There are good reasons to be disappointed: Despite Bulgaria’s integration into the EU, Schengen, as well as the Eurozone as of 2026, inequality has steadily risen. The Gini index of inequality was 24 in 1990; by 2025, it reached 38.4, having peaked at 41.3 in 2018. This trend diverged from much of Europe, showing a sharp increase after 2009 under GERB’s austerity policies. The brief PP-led government from 2021 to 2022 attempted to amend some of this inequality via income policies, though primarily through borrowing.
The COVID crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the 2026 adoption of the Euro have led to high inflation, eroding the improvements to living standards of many Bulgarians. The cost of food, services, and housing remains the primary concern for voters. It is worth noting that Bulgaria’s tax system is not progressive; it is formally flat tax but effectively regressive, as there is a maximum social security ceiling but no minimum, meaning low-income earners pay a higher percentage of their income.
Progressive but not Left
Against this backdrop, Rumen Radev named his coalition "Progressive Bulgaria." Although twice nominated for president as an independent by the BSP, Radev’s "progressive" policy is not traditional leftism. Instead, it emphasizes economic and technological „progress“ as a means to improve living standards. While PB’s program mentions inequality, it explicitly rejects reforming the flat tax system. The program speaks of "tax and financial stability," "public-private partnerships," "reduction of administrative burdens," and the integration of AI into every sphere of society.
There is also the constituency of the small but influential "urban right" - often calling themselves the "democratic community"- consisting of intellectuals, NGO workers, and media professionals. Although they represent only 10-14% of the electorate, they are highly active. They present themselves as both pro-European and anti-corruption. However, they rarely advocate for bringing the tax or social systems in line with those of most European countries. For this urban right, the war in Ukraine is a key identifier; while they condemn Putin, they remain silent on the other aggressors, such as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in the Middle East. Close ideological alignment with the United States is common in Eastern Europe. While this Euro-Atlantic outlook has held fast among members of the political class, this manufactured consensus is cracking at the societal level. Most Bulgarians support EU membership but oppose aid to Ukraine or cutting all ties with Russia.
To an extent, the clear vote for Rumen Radev has restored the balance between public sentiment and political representation. His voters see a chance to dismantle the oligarchic model embodied by GERB’s Boyko Borisov and DPS’s Delyan Peevski, and to pursue a more sovereign foreign policy within the EU and NATO. While some foreign outlets have likened Radev to Viktor Orbán, comparisons to Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico or Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš seem more apt, as Radev does not present himself as an opponent of the EU and has said that policy should be based a stronger Bulgarian voice in the EU, while still pursuing a -in his view- pragmatic and rational approach to relations with Russia.
The scale of Radev’s victory had not been foreseen by pollsters. The overwhelming mandate Radev won suggests that the political crisis has ended, and a regular four-year mandate is likely. PB’s first priority, as stated on election night, was electing new members to the Supreme Judicial Council to appoint an independent Prosecutor General. There appears to be enough support in the new parliament (including from PP-DB and likely a smaller Russophile party) to achieve the necessary constitutional majority for a broader reform of the judiciary system.
Can the Old Left Reinvent Itself?
For the first time in decades, Bulgaria finds itself without a left-wing representation in parliament. A large share of the remaining voters of the Bulgarian Socialist Party shifted their support to Radev, whom they see as their own political figure since he had been nominated for the presidency by the BSP. The party itself failed to overcome the damage caused by its earlier cooperation with GERB and DPS’s controversial leader Peevski. The party embarked on a belated attempt at renewal by selecting a new, young leader, Krum Zarkov. He represents a different profile: ideologically coherent, explicitly socialist in orientation, and with strong international credentials, receiving endorsements from figures such as Pedro Sánchez and the Party of European Socialists. He is also one of the few figures capable of reconnecting the party with segments of the extra-parliamentary left: activists, intellectuals, and smaller left-wing groups that had long distanced themselves from the BSP. The election result, however, suggests that this shift came too late. BSP has failed to regain sufficient trust and did not cross the electoral threshold of 4%, leaving the country with a parliament without a left.
Yet the crisis of the BSP did not begin with Radev wooing away former BSP voters, nor with its most recent coalition choices. Over the last years, the party shifted toward a form of conservative left politics, adopting nationalist and socially conservative positions and increasingly centering its rhetoric on cultural issues such as gender and so-called traditional values. This strategic turn, intended to retain its aging electorate, alienated not only liberal voters but also a significant part of its traditional left-wing base. Losing its clear ideological direction was exacerbated by participating in governing arrangements alongside its main political opponents to the right. These two strategic missteps effectively eroded BSP’s credibility, leading to a nadir from which it struggled to recover. The failure of the BSP to re-enter parliament is not only a party crisis but a broader crisis of the left in Bulgaria. It raises fundamental questions: Can the party rebuild over the coming years or will a new left-wing political project have to emerge in its place?
