Pro-European Conservatives Win the Bulgarian Parliamentary Elections

           A pro-European center-right party that is led by a former Prime Minister defeated the ruling Socialists in Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections today. 

Both parties had pledged to restore economic relations with Russia, with the Socialists going further, to the point of orienting away from Europe.  Therefore, the election results were a defeat for Russia, which had heavily interfered in the election, as it typically does.  The Russian Federation has tended to back far-right nationalist, anti-European parties, but sometimes leftist ones are understandably more sympathetic to Communist ex-KGB Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.  Pro-Russian nationalists lost parliamentary elections in Austria last year and nationalists lost the Dutch parliamentary elections this month.  

The conservatives won a plurality of seats in the Bulgarian parliament and will have to form a coalition with smaller nationalist parties to govern.  The Socialists had also lost the presidential election last year.