On Sunday, Bulgarians headed to the polls in unusually high numbers to deliver a resounding victory to the party of former president Rumen Radev, who held that office until January of this year. Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria won around 45 percent of the vote—one of the largest shares for a single party in Bulgaria’s democratic history, and enough for an absolute majority in the new parliament.
The snap election, the country’s eighth since 2021, was called by Radev himself after the leading parties refused a mandate to form a government, following the collapse of the previous administration amid mass protests against corruption. The result could put an end to years of political instability and fragile coalitions. Perhaps more consequentially, it breaks the long dominance of two EU- and NATO-aligned parties, GERB and DPS, which have between them controlled Bulgarian politics for most of the past two decades.