Bulgarian political crisis (2021–2026)
political crisis in Bulgaria
From April 2021 until May 2026, Bulgaria has faced eight parliamentary elections over five years: April 2021, July 2021, November 2021, October 2022, April 2023, June 2024, October 2024 and April 2026. The political crisis has resulted in three short-lived governments, respectively led by Kiril Petkov, Nikolai Denkov, and Rosen Zhelyazkov. In the absence of a coalition government, Bulgarian presidents Rumen Radev and Iliana Iotova appointed various caretaker prime ministers, including Stefan Yanev, Galab Donev, Dimitar Glavchev, and Andrey Gyurov. The crisis concluded after Progressive Bulgaria, a party founded by former president Rumen Radev, won an absolute majority in the 2026 elections and formed the Radev Government.
Background
Since the end of Soviet domination over the country in 1990, Bulgaria has undergone a gradual economic transition to a capitalist market economy and slowly begun to drift towards the Western world; however, over the years it has been characterised by systemic corruption, state capture by elite business interests, and fragile coalitions.
Former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, and his populist conservative party GERB, had led Bulgaria continuously since 2016. Borisov's third government was embroiled in numerous corruption scandals during his time in office, specifically surrounding the allocation of EU funds, infrastructure projects and government subsidies. Scandals including alleged photographs of the former Prime Minister lying on a bed next to a handgun, bars of gold and stacks of money, and the "Eight Dwarfs" extortion scandal culminated in protests on 9 July 2020, with the aim of removing Borisov's government and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev.
These protests continued daily until after the government's term concluded on 16 April 2021. The protests saw the rise to prominence of several so-called "parties of change", consisting mainly of new political parties which opposed Borisov, many of which joined in with the protests.
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