New far-right pro-Russian party enters Bulgarian parliament, at odds with similar parties

Bulgaria’s early parliamentary elections have seen the entry into parliament of a new far-right pro-Russian party, Velichie, which promises to be a factor in the EU’s poorest country and irritates other pro-Russian parties.

A total of seven political formations will enter Bulgaria’s new parliament after Bulgarians voted for the sixth time in three years to elect a national parliament alongside Sunday’s European elections.

Former prime minister Boyko Borissov’s GERB (EPP) party won the election with 24.63% of the vote, followed by the Turkish minority party DPS (Renew Europe) with 15.9% and the pro-European coalition PP-DB (14.9%). The top three were followed by the pro-Russian far-right party Revival at 14%, the pro-Russian socialist party BSP at 7.1% (PES), and the populist ITN at 6.1%.

However, the previously unknown far-right Velichie party (4.8%) made a surprise first run, campaigning heavily on social media, mainly using TikTok and YouTube.

Velichie promises to overhaul Bulgaria’s economy and talks a lot about the Green Deal and the war in Ukraine. The party is in direct competition with populist and radical formations such as Revival, ITN and the BSP but appears to be much more flexible than previous political actors.

“We have no doubt that Bulgaria should be in NATO and the EU. We need to see what obligations are being imputed on us and which we don’t actually have to fulfil. We are determined to be in the EU and NATO,” party founder Ivelin Mihailov told bTV.

Meanwhile, Velichie’s informal leader, Mihaylov, was not among the party’s candidates. He is a former insurance broker and organiser of paid training sessions on ‘financial independence’.

Velichie’s success has greatly irritated the leader of the other radical pro-Russian party, Revival, Kostadin Kostadinov.

“This is an American project designed to stop the growth of Revival. Too bad for the people who were lied to. We have had financial pyramids many times, but this is the first time we will have a political pyramid,” Kostadinov said.

However, the support for Velichie in the European elections was not enough to give the party an MEP. The election results show that GERB will send five MEPs to the EPP group, with another MEP coming from the PP-DB.

The Liberal group will have five MEPs – three from the MRF and two from the PP-DB. The ID group will get three MEPs from Revival, but the far-right party has threatened to leave over the exclusion of the German AfD.

In addition, two MEPs will go to the socialist BSP group, while one ITN MEP does not yet have a political family.

The pro-European coalition PP-DB suffered the most in the Bulgarian elections, with its score falling by 10% compared to the 2023 parliamentary elections. In the previous parliament, the PP-DB allied with GERB to govern despite accusing party leader Boyko Borissov of corrupt practices.

Also on Monday, Hristo Ivanov, one of the leaders of the PP-DB coalition, announced that he would resign as leader of the Yes Bulgaria party and give up his seat in Parliament. Ivanov said that the government’s compromise with GERB and MRF was worthwhile because there was no alternative to carrying out constitutional reform and forming a regular government.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

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