Former Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has defeated former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov by 31 points in Bulgaria’s general election, according to preliminary exit polls.
With polling stations closed and the country’s embargo on exit polls lifted, Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria has won 44.2% of the vote, with Borissov’s GERB-SDS in second place at 13.4%, according to Alpha Research.
The election is the country’s eighth in five years, and is another flashpoint in the battle between pro-EU and sovereignist political forces in Europe. Borissov’s party is aligned with Brussels’ foreign policy, and he reassured voters on Sunday that his party gives “full support to Ukraine.” Radev has vowed to balance relations between East and West, promising to build a “modern European Bulgaria,” while developing “practical relations with Russia based on mutual respect.”
Radev, who opposes EU aid to Ukraine, has vowed to break the stranglehold of the “oligarchic mafia” on Bulgaria.
Borissov is the country’s longest-serving prime minister, holding office between 2009 and 2021. Radev is a former fighter pilot who served as Bulgaria’s president between 2017 and 2026. The pair publicly clashed during their overlapping stint in power, with Radev backing the 2020 anti-corruption protests that led to Borissov’s downfall.
Just as it did in Hungary last weekend, and in France, Germany, Moldova, and Romania beforehand, the EU has activated its ‘Rapid Response System’ in Bulgaria. This suite of online censorship tools gives the European Commission the power to remove so-called “disinformation” from social media platforms during the election.
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19 April 2026
Speaking of Vucic, the Serbian leader just congratulated Radev on his win, telling Bulgaria’s BTA news agency that he welcomes “the opportunity to strengthen stability and progress, as well as to improve cooperation between Serbia and Bulgaria.”
Is this what the 'European path' looks like? Austrian Social Democrat MEP Andreas Schieder calls Bulgaria a "failed state," adding that the victory of "Putin friend" Radev "not only promises a further deterioration of the political situation in the country and the living reality of the people in Bulgaria, but it is also a setback for Europe."
Schieder infamously led the European Parliament's election observation mission in Serbia in 2023, claiming to have discovered "phantom voters" and other irregularities in the vote. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic accused him of making “malicious” reports to destabilize the country.
All three parallel counts (conducted by Alpha Research, Trend, and Myara) now show Progressive Bulgaria winning an absolute majority, landing between 129 and 134 seats out of 240.
Should Radev bring in a coalition partner and reach 160 seats, he would have the constitutional majority necessary to rewrite the Bulgarian constitution and enact sweeping reforms.
Radev has declared that his party won because voters “rejected the arrogance of the old parties and did not succumb to lies and manipulation.” He said that he will keep Bulgaria “on its European path,” but will push for “critical thinking and pragmatism” within the EU.
“Ask [French President Emmanuel] Macron, the prime minister of Belgium and other leaders who said a month ago that dialog with Russia should return. If we want Europe to have strategic autonomy, Europe must think very seriously in this crisis about how it will guarantee its resources. Without energy resources, we cannot talk about competitiveness,” he told reporters.
Here’s how Western media outlets are covering Radev’s impending victory.
The Myara research institute is conducting a so-called ‘parallel count’, which shows Progressive Bulgaria winning a massive 44.4% of the vote, with GERB-SDS at a distant 11%. In this scenario, Radev would have his pick of coalition partners, needing only another 6% to secure a majority.
A ‘parallel count’ is conducted using official data, allowing media outlets to publish preliminary results before every vote is counted. It’s another peculiarity of Bulgarian elections, along with the ban on exit polls before the end of voting.
Borissov has congratulated Radev on his victory, in a backhanded Facebook post in which he declared his party above “coalitions and…unprincipled assemblies.”
“Winning the elections is one thing, governing is quite another,” he continued. “The elections decide who is first, but the negotiations will decide who will govern.”
The Bulgarian Interior Ministry has revealed that out of 631 reported cases of vote-buying, 318 were allegedly committed by members of Borissov’s GERB-SDS. 18 were allegedly committed by the right-wing ‘Revival’ party, and 16 by Progressive Bulgaria. Another 39 offenses were spread between smaller parties.
An investigation is ongoing, but at present, Borissov’s party is accused of more than half of all cases of vote-buying in the country.
Across multiple exit polls, the results are similar. Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria has won the election: the only question is by what margin.
- Gallup: 35.5% - 17.5%
- Market Links: 39.1% - 15.6%
- Myara: 38.7% - 14.7%
- Alpha Research: 37.5% - 16.2%
If the exit polls hold, it looks like Radev outperformed even the most optimistic pre-election opinion polls, with Progressive Bulgaria beating GERB-SDS by 21 points. The most one-sided opinion poll, conducted by MarketLinks earlier this month, showed Radev’s coalition beating Borissov’s party by 18 points.
Polls have now closed, and the result is a decisive win for Radev, according to data firm Alpha Research. Their figures show Progressive Bulgaria in first place with 37.5%, GERB-SDS in second with 16.2%, and PP-DB in third with 14.3%.
The final tally will differ slightly, and Radev has opted not to immediately declare victory.
“Let’s wait for the official results and see,” he told reporters. “We expected to be first. That means a lot of responsibility. Let’s wait and see.”
Radev’s campaign ads leaned heavily on his past career as a major general in the Bulgarian Air Force. In one particularly memorable video, Radev takes a MiG-29 on a vertical takeoff, marveling at the “incredible power” of the Soviet-built fighter.
Turnout has reached 39.5% as of 6pm local time, according to government statistics. That figure is expected to spike in the hour before polls close, as late voters flock to polling stations and votes from abroad are counted.
Caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov claims that 50 candidates across Bulgaria are attempting to purchase votes “as a last chance to enter parliament.” Gyurov did not name any of these supposed vote-buyers, but said that the interior ministry is “watching them and is ready to counteract them.”
Gyurov’s own chances in the election are slim. His pro-EU PP-DB coalition is languishing in third place with around 14% of the vote, according to informal exit polls. His party, however, could be a potential coalition partner for Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria.
Ultimately, whoever becomes Bulgaria’s prime minister won’t have to decide whether or not to veto the EU’s loan package for Ukraine. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban just announced that Ukraine will restore the flow of Russian oil to Hungary via the ‘Druzhba’ pipeline on Monday. In return, Hungary will lift its veto and allow the loan to go ahead.
With informal exit polls now showing Progressive Bulgaria more than 20 points ahead of GERB-SDS, talk on Bulgarian social media has shifted to what kind of coalition Radev could possibly form.
Aligning with Gyurov’s PP-DB faction would put Radev on the edge of a majority, but would likely soften some of his Euroskeptic edges, as PP-DP is avowedly pro-Brussels and pro-Ukraine. Radev has said that such a coalition would be possible, but “not ideal.”
The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) supported Radev’s run for the presidency in 2016, and would seem a likely coalition partner. However, the BSP is currently lagging in the polls at just over 6%, which would leave Radev seven points short of a majority.
Radev’s stance on Ukraine has been compared to that of outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The Associated Press and Reuters have described Radev as “Bulgaria’s pro-Russian former president,” while the Washington Post has called him the “Kremlin’s next best bet,” and the NATO-funded Atlantic Council has suggested that Bulgaria could “replace Hungary as Putin’s proxy inside the EU.”
All of these are fundamentally misleading. Radev has explicitly pledged to cut off Bulgarian economic and military aid to Ukraine, but in an interview on Saturday, suggested that he would not use Bulgaria’s veto power to block the EU’s €90 billion loan package for Kiev.
He described his position on the Ukraine conflict as “realistic,” and criticized his opponents for following “every Euro-Atlantic line” without putting “Bulgarian interests first.”
While Radev did not name caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, his description of a politician following “every Euro-Atlantic line” fits the acting PM to a tee. Taking office less than two months ago without a mandate, Gyurov has nevertheless signed multiple deals with Kiev, including a ten-year defense agreement that also puts Bulgaria on the hook for Ukraine’s reconstruction and dictates Sofia’s future energy policies.
RT explored Gyurov’s rush to tie Bulgaria to Ukraine in the second installment of our ‘Battle for Bulgaria’ series.
The official ban on exit polls has forced the Bulgarian media to get creative. Blitz, a news site, is presenting the election as a “rally,” in which candidates are portrayed as racing drivers, and the parties as their cars.
According to Blitz, “the savior’s Skoda” (Radev) is in the lead at 37.1 km/h, while the “Jeep from Bankya” (Borissov) is lagging behind at 17 km/h. Other participants include “the patriotic Opel” (the right-wing ‘Revival’ party) at 4.9 km/h, and “the red Lada” (the Bulgarian Socialist Party) at 4 km/h.
Nearly a quarter of eligible Bulgarians have voted, with turnout hitting 23.7% at 2pm local time. That’s 3% higher than at the same time in October 2024, according to government statistics.
There are no formal exit polls in Bulgaria, but that doesn’t stop media outlets publishing their own estimates.
A poll by the center-right ‘Dnevnik’ news outlet shows Radev’s progressive Bulgaria leading Borissov’s GERB-SDS by 34.1% to 20.1%. A quick glance at Dnevnik’s chart appears to show Borissov’s party narrowly trailing Radev’s. But according to the numbers, Progressive Bulgaria has more votes than the next two parties combined.
What’s unclear is whether this is an example of poor graphic design, or not-so-subtle bias.
Remember Christo Grozev? He’s the Bellingcat investigator appointed by Bulgaria’s caretaker government to “counter disinformation and combat hybrid threats” surrounding the election.
According to the government, Grozev will “assist the organization with specific information exposing malicious influences,” which will then “be able to be addressed both at the national and European levels through mechanisms developed by the European Commission” – the same censorship machinery RT reported on earlier.
So far, his work has seemingly involved reading RT’s coverage of the election. Stay tuned, Christo!
Reports of election meddling have trickled in all day. According to the deputy secretary of the Bulgarian Interior Ministry, Georgi Kandev, 181 cases of fraud have been reported and 13 criminal cases opened.
A vote-buying scheme was discovered in the town of Smolyan this morning, Kandev said, explaining that three people were caught with €40,000 intended for the purchase of votes.
For anyone else attempting to interfere, the ministry “has prepared some surprises,” he warned.
Queues have been reported at polling stations abroad, with particularly long waits seen in Brussels, Rome, and Vienna. More than 60,000 Bulgarians in 68 countries have registered to vote, and the queues are another sign pointing to higher turnout than during previous elections.
Radev’s vote was a more low-key affair, with the former president driving himself to a polling station in Sofia – and reportedly getting delayed in traffic along the way. Notably, Radev was not accompanied by his wife, Desislava. In a Facebook post on Saturday night, she said that she would “think about it for another half hour,” Bulgarian media reported.
Borissov has explicitly ruled out forming a coalition. Speaking to reporters after casting his vote, he said that GERB-SDS will “no longer compromise” and weaken its position through coalitions.
During his 12 years in power, Borissov earned a reputation for forming coalitions with anyone from the center or right to stay in power. Here, he’s practically admitting defeat: GERB-SDS is polling at around 20%, meaning a broad coalition would be essential for a return to office.
Voter interest is higher than usual in a Bulgarian election. Turnout hit 17% by noon, up from 13.5% at the same time during snap elections in October 2024.
Repeated elections have resulted in voter fatigue in Bulgaria. Just 33% and 38% of eligible Bulgarians voted in the country’s two general elections in 2024. This time around, turnout is expected to hit 60%, according to the Sofia-based Alpha Research.