Thousands of people braved freezing weather to protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Wednesday, calling for a fair election as the Balkan country appeared to be headed toward an early vote.
Protesters said they wanted voting free of vote manipulation, vote buying and falsification of results, and they argued that the refusal of the outgoing government to introduce machine voting for a possible early election was another attempt to tamper with the outcome.
The demonstration in the capital came after last month’s protests, which were sparked by attempts by the governing coalition to introduce a 2026 budget plan that Bulgarians feared would add to their woes as prices rose.
The government later withdrew the contentious 2026 budget plan, but the protesters’ demands expanded to include calls for the center-right government to step down.
At the core of the protesters’ frustrations, the report said, was the role of Bulgarian politician and oligarch Delyan Peevski, who has been under U.S. and U.K. sanctions. The report said Peevski’s MRF New Beginning party had repeatedly backed the outgoing coalition led by GERB, the party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.
Bulgaria, a country of 6.4 million people that joined the European Union in 2007, has been marked by deep rifts that have led to successive elections that have not produced a stable government able to steer the country out of its political crisis. The report said Bulgaria made the switch from the lev to the euro on Jan. 1, becoming the eurozone’s 21st member.
President Rumen Radev, the report said, already offered the two biggest groups in parliament the chance to form a new government, but both attempts failed. The president will choose a candidate, and if that effort does not succeed, he will appoint a caretaker Cabinet until a new election is held.