{"id":19586,"date":"2026-04-20T03:43:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=19586"},"modified":"2026-04-20T03:43:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:43:03","slug":"bulgaria-election-ex-president-radevs-party-leads-in-early-results-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=19586","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria election: Ex-President Radev\u2019s party leads in early results | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Rumen Radev\u2019s Progressive Bulgaria party takes strong lead in parliamentary election.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Published On 19 Apr 2026<\/span>19 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

|<\/span><\/p>\n

Updated: 2 hours ago<\/span>Updated: 2 hours ago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Former President Rumen Radev\u2019s centre-left Progressive Bulgaria party is leading in the country\u2019s parliamentary election, according to early official results.<\/p>\n

Bulgarians cast their ballots on Sunday for the eighth time in five years, after mass protests led to the removal of the previous conservative government in December.<\/p>\n

\n

Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

With 32 percent of the votes counted, Progressive Bulgaria was in the lead with 44.59 percent, preliminary results showed in the early hours of Monday.<\/p>\n

Earlier, an updated exit poll conducted by Sofia-based Alpha Research showed Radev\u2019s party winning 44 percent of the vote, according to the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov\u2019s conservative GERB was trailing in second place with 12.5 percent of the vote, the exit poll showed, while the reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition was projected to finish third. Radev said he would be willing to work with them, but a minority government was also an option.<\/p>\n

Borissov wrote in a post on Facebook: \u201cElections decide who comes first, but negotiations will decide who governs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov casts his vote in a polling station in Bankya, Bulgaria, on April 19, 2026 [Valentina Petrova\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Radev, a left-leaning eurosceptic, stepped down from the presidency in January, after nine years, to launch his bid to become prime minister. He had backed the anticorruption protests that saw hundreds of thousands of largely young people take to the streets in December, and promised to get rid of the \u201coligarchic governance model\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do everything possible not to allow us to go [to elections] again. It is ruinous for Bulgaria,\u201d Radev told reporters after the exit poll was released. \u201cWe are ready to consider different options so that Bulgaria can have a regular and stable government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Balkan country has seen fragmented parliaments in recent years, with coalitions failing to last more than a year since 2021.<\/p>\n

Radev has called for renewing ties with Moscow and criticised supplying Ukraine with weapons to fend off Russia\u2019s invasion. He also opposed the 10-year defence agreement signed between Bulgaria and Ukraine in March, and has been accused by critics of being too pro-Russian.<\/p>\n

Bulgaria\u2019s election comes in the wake of Viktor Orban\u2019s defeat in Hungary last week after 16 years in power. The right-wing prime minister lost to P\u00e9ter Magyar\u2019s centre-leaning opposition Tisza party, which swept 70 percent of the seats in parliament.<\/p>\n

Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007 and adopted the euro as its currency in January this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rumen Radev\u2019s Progressive Bulgaria party takes strong lead in parliamentary election. Published On 19 Apr 202619 Apr 2026 | Updated: 2 hours agoUpdated: 2 hours ago Former President Rumen Radev\u2019s centre-left Progressive Bulgaria party is leading in the country\u2019s parliamentary election, according to early official results. Bulgarians cast their ballots on Sunday for the eighth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}