The New Orbán? Pro-Russian, Anti-Migration Party Wins Landslide Victory in Bulgaria
Brussels set for a real headache ahead with Rumen Radev, known for his opposition to funding Ukraine and stopping mass migration.
Just when the European Union thought they had climbed the summit with the election loss of Viktor Orban, Bulgaria has just swung to the pro-Russian right with the landslide election victory of former president Rumen Radev.
Results from the Bulgarian election, with nearly all votes votes counted, show the Progressive Bulgaria (PB) coalition, led by former president Rumen Radev, with 44.69 percent of the vote, followed by PP-DB with 14.55 percent and the conservative GERB-SDS with 12.66 percent, a drop of nearly 15 percent.
Koskovics Zoltán, a geopolitical analyst at the Budapest based Center for Fundamental Rights, wrote on X: “A lot of ‘Well, fucks,’ in Brussels this morning. Turns out all that effort, all that black propaganda, the covert operations and the strategic leaks were for nothing. Radev, in many ways, could be worse than Orbán, for them. And he can certainly delay their war till the French elections. I hope he understands that’s job number 1.”
This was Bulgaria’s eighth parliamentary election in five years. The early election took place after the government of Rosen Zhelazkov bowed to the pressure of mass social protests at the end of 2025 and resigned.
Radev is said to oppose mass migration, sanctions on Russia, and funding the war in Ukraine. A former fighter pilot and commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian Air Force, he has been vocal about the need for greater European defense and plans to boost the country’s own ammunition and explosives sector in line with this.
According to Jan Nowinowski, an analyst at the Center for Eastern Studies, “Progressive Bulgaria is a center-left formation. But this leftism is expressed primarily in social promises; the party is quite traditionalist in its worldview.” The analyst told Newsweek, as quoted by Do Rzeczy, that “promises to fight corruption are key to its message; its slogans are otherwise very general, expressed in populist language.”
As of now, PB is not part of any grouping in the European Parliament. In January, Bulgaria officially joined the eurozone, initiating its gradual phase-out of the Bulgarian lev. Moving forward, Radev will need coalition partners to form a government back home, which may influence its EP grouping.
For now, he has promised to ensure stability and “work very seriously” to avoid continuous crises. “We are ready for various options to ensure Bulgaria has a stable government,” he told media.
After Hungary’s parliamentary elections last week, incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has indicated that his country will also set a timeline for switching to the euro after a thorough review of the economy. The forint had been strengthening steadily in the lead-up to the election and further spiked after Magyar was elected. Much pressure has also been put on Poland to join; however, there is also a large amount of domestic opposition to such a move.