{"id":32523,"date":"2026-04-19T20:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/bulgaria-votes-the-former-pro-russian-president-is-seen-as-a-contender-for-victory\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T20:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:00:22","slug":"bulgaria-votes-the-former-pro-russian-president-is-seen-as-a-contender-for-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/bulgaria-votes-the-former-pro-russian-president-is-seen-as-a-contender-for-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria votes, the former pro-Russian president is seen as a contender for victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e7744159-5a44-4a21-94f7-7de8246bb43a.jpg\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;margin-bottom:20px\"><\/p>\n<p>Bulgarians headed to the polls on Sunday for their eighth parliamentary election in five years as pro-Russian former President Rumen Radev, who promises to root out corruption and end a spiral of weak and short-lived governments, is seen as the winner.<\/p>\n<p>Radev, a eurosceptic former fighter pilot who opposes military support for Ukraine&#8217;s war effort against Moscow, has given resigning the presidency in January to run in elections, which come after mass protests forced the previous government to fall in October.<\/p>\n<p>A smart social media campaign and a promise of stability have boosted support for Radev in the Balkan country of about 6.5 million people, where voters are tired of repeated snap elections and a small group of veteran politicians widely seen as corrupt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFinally we need a path towards a democratic and modern European Bulgaria&#8221;, said Radev after casting his vote in Sofia.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need our very strong program in the parliament to support the Bulgarian citizens to get out of this very difficult situation as soon as possible&#8221;, he added.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding relations with Moscow, he said that &#8220;he hopes to develop practical relations, based on mutual respect and treatment equal&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Bulgaria has developed rapidly since the fall of communism in 1989 and joined the European Union in 2007. Life expectancy has risen sharply, unemployment is the lowest in the EU and the economy has greater protections since joining the eurozone in January.<\/p>\n<p>But Bulgaria lags behind other EU countries on many metrics and corruption remains endemic, including in elections, where the purchase of votes is widespread.<\/p>\n<p>The cost of living has become a particular problem since Bulgaria, a NATO member, adopted the euro. The previous government fell amid protests against a new budget that proposed tax increases and higher social security contributions.<\/p>\n<p>We use cookies to improve the experience and display ads (Google AdSense).<br \/>\n          By clicking &#8220;Accept&#8221;, you agree to the use of cookies according to<br \/>\n          Privacy Policy<br \/>\n          and<br \/>\n          Cookies Policy.<br \/>\n          You can reject non-necessary cookies by clicking &#8220;Reject&#8221;.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin:30px 0\">\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#666\">Source: <strong>prizrenpost<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bulgarians headed to the polls on Sunday for their eighth parliamentary election in five years as pro-Russian former President Rumen Radev, who promises to root out corruption and end a spiral of weak and short-lived governments, is seen as the winner. Radev, a eurosceptic former fighter pilot who opposes military support for Ukraine&#8217;s war effort [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[666],"class_list":["post-32523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-brief"],"views":19,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32525,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32523\/revisions\/32525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}