Radev wins the Bulgarian elections: what does this mean for the working class? 

Just five months ago, Bulgaria was in the grip of one of the biggest protest movements in its history. Based on wide social layers – in particular the youth – and borrowing many of the slogans from the ‘Gen Z’ revolutions, this movement forced the hated government to resign, triggering the eighth parliamentary election in the last five years. Whilst the ruling class is desperately seeking stability, the workers and youth of Bulgaria are striving for change.

The results of this election, held on 19 April, have proved to be a massacre for all of the discredited establishment parties. The GERB-SDS coalition, headed by Boyko Borisov, who has dominated the government in one way or another since 2009, has haemorrhaged support, gaining only 13 percent of the vote.

The other ‘status-quo’ parties fared little better. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which has already been in long-term decline, didn’t even get enough votes to reach the parliamentary threshold! This collapse of the traditional ‘left’, a process underway long before the 2026 election, left a political vacuum for a new anti-establishment force to emerge.

Into this vacuum has stepped the clear winner of the election: a coalition formed just a month ago, ‘Progressive Bulgaria’ (PB) headed by former President Rumen Radev. The 44 percent of the vote that PB has won will allow it to form the first majority government in Bulgaria since 1997.

Radev had been in the largely ceremonial position of president for nearly a decade, where, kept at a distance from the discredited governments, he could frequently criticise corruption and align himself with popular sentiment, such as against the adoption of the Euro and the war in Ukraine. 

Voter turnout was nearly 51 percent, up from 39 percent in the 2024 elections. This is a clear indication that some of the energy of the mass movement last year has been channelled into this election, sending a clear message: that the workers and youth of Bulgaria are sick of the entire establishment.

Tectonic shift following mass protests

Radev’s rise is an expression of the stormy mood in society: exhaustion with endless government paralysis, rampant corruption, and inflation. All of this is against the background of a turbulent world situation, marked by imperialist wars, with the war in Ukraine being virtually on Bulgaria’s doorstep.

From his post as president, Radev supported the December 2025 mass anti-corruption protests, which were an eruption of social anger triggered by a draft budget, and which forced the collapse of the GERB-SDS government. 

During last year’s protests, ‘We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria’ (PP-DB) opportunistically attempted to position itself as the leader of the movement. Despite this, PP-DB’s percentage of the vote declined, and according to exit polls it contributed the largest share of votes transferred to Radev’s party in relative terms. This is despite Radev’s socially conservative opposition to PP-DB on a wide variety of culture war questions, demonstrating that such topics were not a major priority for many, including the former PP-DB voters who switched to Radev. Among 18-30 year-olds, Progressive Bulgaria led with 42 percent, ahead of PP-DB – formerly the most popular party amongst the youth – at 20 percent.

The ‘Revival’ party, despite having led an opportunistic movement and campaign against the adoption of the Euro along petty-bourgeois nationalist lines, lost 45 percent of their voters from last elections to Radev’s party.

Whilst Radev drew much of his vote share by syphoning support from other parties, about 35 percent of his vote came from those who did not turn out for the last elections. These massive shifts in the vote demonstrate that these ‘protest’ parties, PP-DB and Revival, have completely failed to capitalise on the mood of last year’s protests. 

There is a disconnect between the sentiment on the ground at these protests – which erupted spontaneously against the status quo – and the politics of the leadership who claim to, but do not, represent them. In the case of PP-DB, they have loudly proclaimed that they are the representatives of Gen Z, but the results of the recent election beg to differ. 

Cheap populism buys cheap support, especially when based on the slogan of anti-corruption, which neither of these parties are seen as being clean of. PP-DB, for example, was at one point itself a part of the ruling coalition, alongside GERB. That all of these pseudo-opposition ‘protest parties’ have lost votes in the election, illustrates that they are just as decisively rejected by the masses as the GERB-SDS government that was overthrown!

Radev: stabiliser of what and for whose interests? 

With all other parties discredited, and a void on the left, the former president has managed to capture the anti-establishment mood. This is an image that he has been cultivating for years. In response to anxieties around the adoption of the Euro, he proposed a referendum on the issue, which was blocked by the Constitutional Court: an opportunist manoeuvre that further helped consolidate the current support around him.

He has also criticised military aid to Ukraine and recently opposed Bulgaria’s ten-year defence agreement with Ukraine. This tapped into anti-war sentiment and the pro-Russian sympathies that a large part of the Bulgarian population hold, flowing from historical and cultural ties. 

He now presents himself as a kind of neutral ‘national arbiter’, standing above the fractured political arena. The ruling class see him as a useful tool because, unlike the other parties and political figures, he has public support to expend. But this image will not survive long in government as he is compelled to carry out the programme of the capitalist class in conditions of sharpening economic crisis and growing militarism on a world scale.

Radev’s party falsely presents itself as a ‘progressive’ alternative. But with an actual majority in parliament, it will be expected to solve the problems of the day: low wages, inflation, corrupt oligarchic networks, demographic decline, and so on. And again, we will see a sharp contradiction between the interests of the working class and youth on the one hand, and what yet another bourgeois party can provide on a bankrupt capitalist basis on the other. 

With all other parties discredited, and a void on the left, the former president has managed to capture the anti-establishment mood / Image: fair use

Radev’s reputation as a fighter of corruption will be short-lived. The whole political class is entrenched in the same corruption. 

Radev is also inheriting a difficult international situation. Bulgarian capitalism is trying to steady itself: to secure EU funding and to remain aligned with NATO. But at the same time, it has important economic interests that link it to Russia, which it cannot afford to jeopardise. Caught between these pressures, which are sharpened by tensions within the EU, shifts in US policy, and the reassertion of Russian imperialism in the region, the Bulgarian bourgeoisie has little room for independent manoeuvre and cannot resolve the contradictions faced by Bulgarian capitalism. 

Bulgaria remains tied to Russian-linked energy infrastructure and transit revenues: strategic assets such as the Lukoil refinery at Burgas continue to dominate the Bulgarian fuel market. Despite pressures to cut ties with Russia, this refinery was granted exemptions from western sanctions on Russian fuel. 

Transit fees on Russian gas pipelines are also a major source of income for the Bulgarian economy, through energy transit routes such as TurkStream. This was built by the Russian gas company Gazprom to get energy to Europe via Turkey and Bulgaria. Bulgarian nuclear plans are also reliant on Russian supplies, which further entrenches these links to Russian capital.

On the other hand, the arrival of the EU’s Recovery and Resilience funds for Bulgaria have been repeatedly delayed because of political crises and unmet austerity and ‘reform’ requirements imposed by Europe. Bulgaria’s role within NATO is largely reduced to that of a logistical base – with ensuing risks as regional conflicts flare up –  and as a supplier of cheap weapons and ammunition. This relationship is seen by many, correctly, as against the interests of Bulgarian workers, which is a sentiment Radev has opportunistically tapped into.

Radev promises order and stability while keeping avenues for business open in every direction: be it from Brussels, Washington, or Moscow. Radev talks of ‘balance’ as a means of putting Bulgarian national interests first, but really, this reflects the position of a small, dependent bourgeoisie under pressure from competing imperialist blocs. A figure like Radev gives political expression to this situation.

Against this backdrop, liberals decry Radev’s willingness to enter into dialogue with Moscow as a ‘pro-Russian’ or authoritarian drift, some even accuse him of proposing a ‘Putinist’ model for Bulgaria. But for now, regardless of its ties with Russia, Bulgaria remains tightly bound to the EU and NATO, with no coherent political force capable of changing this.

A parliament without a left

It is significant after five years of parliamentary deadlock and fragmentation that Radev’s party can govern on its own, with 131 of 240 seats in the National Assembly. This situation means that opposition parties or troublesome coalition partners cannot be blamed for the failures of the government. 

This majority means that, when Radev fails to use his position for anything ‘progressive’, and when it is shown that his government doesn’t fundamentally differ from the previous governments, there will be nothing to shield Radev from the masses’ anger. It is only a matter of time before this party proves itself bound by the same capitalist system, and any illusions in Radev as a clean break from the status quo will break.

For workers and youth, nothing in these electoral results offers a way forward. All parties on the ballot defend a capitalist framework of privatisation, low wages, and subordination to foreign capital – be it Russian, American, or European. This includes the BSP, the total collapse of which underlines how the official ‘left’ has exhausted itself after years of assisting with the running of Bulgarian capitalism.

The BSP actually backed Radev’s 2016 presidential bid, bringing him from the air force into politics, but he shed these ties long ago. This association is still used by commentators to classify his party as somehow on the left, which is a total distortion. In reality, Radev has broken from the bankrupt ‘socialists’ and abandoned any ‘left’ content to his politics.

Whilst Radev has been able to fill the void created by the absence of any viable organisation on the left, the expectations of the masses who have lent him their support will eventually clash with the reality of his pro-capitalist programme. All eyes are on Radev to tackle the issues facing Bulgarian workers and young people; when he fails that, the deep anger in society that toppled the previous government may well burst to the surface once more.

But for such anger to be channeled into a real alternative, the working class requires its own revolutionary organisation, both in Bulgaria and internationally. What is needed is not another ‘saviour’, but the building of an international revolutionary Marxist organisation with a clear perspective for independent working-class struggle.