The former president who became a tribune against corruption, considered pro-Russian and by some even Eurosceptic, Rumen Radev, is going as expected towards victory in Bulgaria, voting for the eighth time in five years. A result that would be a turning point, if not a substantial one, in the political life of the Balkan country. For the first time, the conservative GERB party collapsed, placing itself, according to the first exit pools released when the polls closed, in second place with 15.4% of the votes. Less than half of the votes, which would deliver a triumph to Radev’s newly formed “Progressive Bulgaria” party which with 38.9% of the votes would obtain around 110 seats out of the 240 in the Bulgarian unicameral parliament, a high number but not enough to obtain an absolute majority.
From the presidency to the fight against the oligarchy
In January, Radev, a 62-year-old former top gun, in an unprecedented act, announced his resignation from the presidency and declared that he wanted to take the field to “destroy the oligarchic model and fight the mafia that has infiltrated all levels of government in the country” thanks, according to him, to the conservative governments of the GERB, with the tacit complicity of the Turkish minority party (DPS).
Foreign positions: between diplomacy and skepticism
If the anti-corruption and anti-oligarch programmatic slogans are very clear on a national level, the positions in foreign policy are not so clear. Radev as president had asked, without obtaining it from Parliament, a referendum on Bulgaria’s entry into the euro as it was “premature”. On Ukraine, Radev, former commander of the air force, seems very cautious: yes, “Russia is an aggressor”, he has always admitted, but the issue must be resolved “not with weapons but with diplomacy”.
In recent days he has been clearer and more categorical: «Military and financial aid must not be given to Ukraine. I am not pro-Russian, I have a pro-Bulgarian position, that is, a realistic one. In Kiev, rash decisions are being made, which do not take into account the consequences. This is leading Bulgaria and the EU towards a crisis.” Due to these positions, several observers in Bulgaria and abroad have defined him as “pro-Russian and Eurosceptic”, even a potential “new Orban”, excessive definitions according to other analysts.
The new parliamentary structure and the social crisis
The liberal party “Let’s continue the change” (PP) with 13.6% of the votes, the DPS party with 7.5% and the nationalist party “Vazrazhdane” (“Rebirth”) with 5.1% of the votes would also overcome the 4% barrier to enter parliament. The Socialists would be on the brink of defeat with 4.1% of the votes, still in the balance, but who have partially refuted the polls that had them for dead.
Yet another early vote in Bulgaria was held in a situation of economic stalemate and social unrest due to the galloping cost of living following the introduction of the euro at the beginning of the year. The latest of the parliamentary crises that have occurred in Bulgaria in recent years erupted last December, when mass protests throughout Bulgaria against the government, accused of corruption and collusion with mafia circles, forced Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov and his government to throw in the towel. A member of the conservative GERB party, Zhelyazkov led a coalition with socialists and populists from the ITN, three historically rival parties.