{"id":18002,"date":"2026-04-20T13:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/18002\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:38:18","slug":"bulgarias-pro-kremlin-ex-president-wins-election-russia-and-eu-welcome-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/18002\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria\u2019s pro-Kremlin ex-president wins election, Russia and EU welcome victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro-Russian former President Rumen Radev has won Bulgaria<\/a>\u2019s parliamentary election by a landslide, official results showed on Monday, crushing long-dominant political forces and possibly pushing the EU<\/a> and Nato<\/a> member state closer to Moscow.<\/p>\n

The performance, exceeding opinion poll forecasts, is one of the strongest results for a single party in a generation and may end, for now, the chronic instability that led to eight elections \u200cin five years.<\/p>\n

Radev\u2019s Progressive Bulgaria party had 44.7 per cent of the vote after 97.52 per cent of ballots were counted, suggesting it could rule alone, but he has not ruled out a coalition with a pro-European group or a smaller party.<\/p>\n

Progressive Bulgaria\u2019s tally put it far ahead of the pro-European We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition with 12.8 per cent and the long-dominant GERB party, led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, at 13.4 per cent.<\/p>\n

A Eurosceptic and former fighter pilot opposed to military support for Ukraine\u2019s war<\/a> effort against Moscow, Radev stepped down from Bulgaria\u2019s largely ceremonial presidency in January to run in the parliamentary election after mass protests forced out the previous government in December.<\/p>\n

He rode a \u2060wave of frustration with political instability in the Balkan nation of 6.5 million, where voters are sick of corruption and veteran parties that have dominated politics for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro-Russian former President Rumen Radev has won Bulgaria\u2019s parliamentary election by a landslide, official results showed on Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10615,966,39,40,2715,481,12779,12780],"class_list":{"0":"post-18002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-black-sea","9":"tag-bulgaria","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-moscow","13":"tag-nato","14":"tag-progressive-bulgaria","15":"tag-sofia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}