Russia-friendly former president Rumen Radev is on course to win Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections with an outright majority, a result that could stabilise the government after a long series of snap elections, but may push the EU and Nato member closer to Moscow.
Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria, a leftist political group, was predicted to win more than 43 per cent of the vote, enough to give him 129 seats in the 240-seat parliament, according to an independent result verification by local pollster AlphaResearch. Official final results are due on Monday.
“We have defeated apathy, but distrust in Bulgarian politics is still great,” Radev told reporters in Sofia. “This is a victory of morality . . . This is a victory of hope over distrust and of freedom over fear.”