By Petia Gueorguieva, New Bulgarian University.
This article was first published in the Hermès review on the 15th of December 2025. Link to the original article in French: « Dehors la mafia », les protestations bulgares provoquent la chute du gouvernement à la veille de l’adhésion à la zone euro – Revue Hermès – Cognition – Communication – Politique.
Citizen protests of an unprecedented scale since 1997 have led to the resignation of the minority coalition led by Prime Minister Rossen Jelyazkov, in power since January 16, 2025, in Bulgaria.
At the forefront of the mobilization are members of Generation Z who, like their parents and grandparents before them, are once again demanding a democratic future for Bulgaria: they want to stay and refuse to be forced to leave the country to seek opportunities abroad.
Moreover, the hundreds of thousands of citizens who have mobilized come from all age groups and social and political backgrounds. The protest movement is heterogeneous and does not claim a single partisan label. What unites all demonstrators is their determination to expel the “mafia,” to live in a country without oligarchs and without state capture — a country governed by the rule of law, where justice applies equally to everyone; where votes are neither manipulated nor traded; where the security sector is not used against regime opponents; where businesses owned by those outside power circles are not expropriated; and where a small minority does not enrich itself at the expense of the efforts of the majority.
This new protest cycle is the expression of a long accumulation of frustrations, injustices, and violations of the rule of law. It is also directed against the specter of creeping autocratization modeled on Viktor Orbán’s Hungary — particularly evident throughout 2025.
The rejection of this model of mafia-style governance is not new. Bulgarians had already taken to the streets en masse in 2013–2014, again in the summer of 2020, and continuously since then, around more specific causes: protesting violence against women, demanding improved working conditions and salaries for doctors and nurses, or opposing the arrest of Varna’s mayor, Blagomir Kotsev, in the summer of 2025, who was detained for several months.
The immediate trigger was the draft budget for 2026 — the country’s first budget in euros, as Bulgaria is set to become the 21st member of the eurozone on January 1, 2026. The text, deemed unjust, unbalanced, and unacceptable by the opposition, trade unions, and employers’ organizations, was introduced by the government with arrogance and without prior consultation with either social partners or other parliamentary parties, in violation of democratic norms. Prime Minister Jelyazkov’s government attempted to push the bill through hastily and by force. It provides for tax increases affecting the majority of workers, a higher dividend tax placing the burden on the middle classes, while simultaneously granting generous wage increases to the security sector and public administration.
The protest movement erupted on November 26, following a call from the pro-European parliamentary opposition led by the coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria, and peaked on December 10, when more than 150,000 people gathered in Sofia and over 500,000 demonstrated nationwide and within Bulgarian diasporas abroad. The use of digital platforms such as TikTok and Meta played a significant role in mobilization.
However, the budget proposal was merely the spark that ignited widespread discontent with this unnatural governing coalition composed of three parties: Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and There Is Such a People — a party created in 2020 precisely to combat and eliminate GERB from the political scene. This minority coalition survives thanks to the parliamentary support of the party representing Bulgarian Turks, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning, under the leadership of Delyan Peevski. If one figure embodies, in political imagination and narratives, the “mafia” and the rejected model of governance, it is Delyan Peevski — sanctioned under the U.S. Magnitsky Act in 2021 for corruption. Peevski is widely portrayed as exerting influence and control over the judicial system and the security sector. The 2013 protest cycle, in particular, opposed his appointment as head of the national security agency DANS. Another central figure of this model is former Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borissov. Protesters thus denounce what they describe as the Borissov–Peevski model.
While older generations remember life before Borissov, Generation Z grew up under Borissov’s governments and those of his party, GERB. Their mobilization reflects exhaustion with a worn-out political elite that obstructs democratization, Europeanization, modernization, and the rule of law. At the same time, the protest movement also includes Eurosceptic and anti-European actors who oppose eurozone membership and who, in recent years, have demonstrated in favor of holding a national referendum on the issue.
Thus, on December 11, under pressure from the streets, Prime Minister Jelyazkov announced the resignation of his government just before a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly. During this sixth no-confidence vote in twelve months, once again, the parliamentary opposition failed to gather the required majority of 121 deputies to bring down the government.
For the outgoing government, the protests are portrayed as being directed against the eurozone and allegedly orchestrated by oligarchs and anti-European forces. The cabinet prides itself on having defended Bulgaria’s national interest and on its major achievements: accession to the eurozone and to the Schengen area.
Since April 2021, 2025 has been the only year without elections, but 2026 is expected to be turbulent, with the seventh early elections and the eighth overall elections in just four years. The Jelyazkov cabinet was the first regular government to remain in office for nearly a year.
The anti-government opposition is calling for new elections that are fair, transparent, and marked by high voter turnout. Leaders of the We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria coalition are urging citizens to grant them an absolute majority to carry out the necessary reforms to build a democratic and European Bulgaria. However, political forces remain deeply polarized, and party system fragmentation is significant. If the transition to the euro does not proceed smoothly and the first months of 2026 bring a surge in prices, the strong rise of Eurosceptic and anti-European parties cannot be ruled out.
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Petia Gueorgieva is a senior professor in the Department of Political Science of the New Bulgarian University. Her researches focus on Central and Eastern Europe politics and parties, the process of europeanization and democratization.