As we noted last week, the year’s first early election will be in Japan, scheduled for 8 February. The second one will be in Bulgaria: no date has been set yet, but late March or early April is likely. The last election was in October 2024, so parliament will have lasted close to a year and a half – and it tells you a lot about Bulgaria that that will make it the longest-lived parliament since 2017-21.
This will be the eighth election in that time (here’s an earlier report on the remarkable sequence, with lots of links). The main thing preventing stable government has been that parties are divided along two different axes: roughly, more vs less corrupt and pro- vs anti-Russian. It’s impossible to produce a majority for either position on one axis without embracing an unsustainable diversity on the other.
The last election was noteworthy for a split in the old Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), which is broadly liberal/centrist (and therefore anti-Russian) but also deeply corrupt. The less corrupt half, now called APS, agreed to support a coalition government consisting of GERB (centre-right establishment), the Socialists (centre-left, less anti-Russian) and ITN (conservative-populist).
But after the seat allocation had been re-done following a recount, the two halves of DPS changed places, with APS going into opposition and DPS-Peevski (the more corrupt half) supporting the government. Also in opposition were the main reformist party, PP-DB, and three parties representing different shades of far-right opinion. With GERB’s Rosen Zhelyazkov as prime minister, the government staggered on until last December, when widespread protests over the budget led to its resignation.
No-one thinks the existing parliament can sustain an alternative government, so another election was unavoidable. But a new factor has been added with the resignation of president Rumen Radev, signalling a clear intention to contest the elections himself, presumably with a new party. He has clashed repeatedly with the Zhelyazkov government, particularly over military aid to Ukraine and the introduction of the euro, both of which he opposed.
Radev was elected with the support of the Socialists; in office he has moved to a more populist and pro-Russian position, but also enjoys substantial support among anti-corruption and anti-establishment forces. Given his poor relations with GERB and the oligarchs he may hope for an alliance with PP-DB (although it is generally pro-Ukraine), or he may be aiming to bring some of the far right within the tent.
Keeping that wild card in mind, opinion polls show GERB still in the lead, polling in the mid-20s, a few points ahead of PP-DB. The main far-right party, Revival, is in the low teens, jostling for third place with DPS-Peevski; the Socialists and another far-right party, MECh, are in the high single figures. No-one else is assured of reaching the 4% threshold, but APS and ITN are both in contention.
The World is Not Enough 