Rumen Radev
Deadlock after eight elections in five years. The country’s former president will, apparently, assume the role of prime minister, but polls suggest that his party will need a coalition to form a government.
Exit polls suggest that the former president’s party Rumen Radev is the likely winner of elections in Bulgaria this Sunday, which many hope could end a protracted political impasse in the country.
Radev, 62, leader of the newly formed Progressive Bulgaria party, has vowed to eradicate corruption and halt a spiral of weak, short-lived governments. According to polls, it will, however, need coalition partners to form a majority government.
The exit poll carried out by the Sofia-based Alpha Research institute showed that Progressive Bulgaria won 37.5% of the votesfar ahead of the center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, which came second in the survey with 16.2%.
This was the eighth election in five years in the Balkan country, which has around 6.5 million inhabitants.
Radev to the Presidency in January to run in the elections, following the resignation of a government led by the conservatives last December, at a time of several across the country.
The former Air Force general, who was president of Bulgaria for nine years, promised to combat what he calls the “oligarchic governance model” in the country.
Bulgaria, the poorest member state of the European Union (EU), is mired in political crisis since 2021after the fall of the conservative government led by Borissov, also in the context of anti-corruption demonstrations.
After voting this Sunday, Radev encouraged other people to do the same, stating that massive participation was “the only way to drown vote buying in a sea of free votes”.
During the campaign, he advocated that Bulgaria reestablish ties with Russia, while at the same time criticized the sending of military aid to Ukraine. Still, he also criticized the Russian invasion and promised that he would not use his country’s veto to block European Union aid to Kievif he were elected.
Radev also opposes the EU’s green energy policywhich she considers naive “in a world without rules”.
Radev, a former fighter pilot, is described as aligned with Russia. He has already expressed several times that he does not support sending weapons to Kiev and that Crimea should be declared “Russian”, something that only reflects, for him, a strategic reality.
Borissov rejects coalition
Borissov served three terms as Prime Minister of Bulgaria. During the campaign, he highlighted his party’s track record, stating that it “made the dreams of the 1990s come true”, among other things, with Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone this year.
When voting in Bankya, on the outskirts of Sofia, this Sunday, Borissov was less than optimistic about his party’s prospects. He stressed that GERB will not enter any government coalition.
“I don’t see who we can form a coalition with,” he said, according to the Bulgarian public broadcaster.
The former prime minister said that his party will act as a constructive opposition and will participate in matters related to geopolitics, such as national defense.
Bulgaria is a member of the European Union and NATO, and joined the eurozone on January 1, shortly after entering the Schengen area — the area of free movement without internal border controls that Germany is part of and which includes most EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
