Countercurrent Affairs

The campaign

Radev refused to participate in debates and spent a lot of time speaking to people in town halls across the country.

His supporters, however, were highly active online with multiple groups in Facebook changing their names and purpose in support of Radev and Progressive Bulgaria. The groups that were originally focused on the brotherhood between Russia and Bulgaria; or mundane topics such the resale of car parts; or even in support of parties opposing Raved; have become active amplifiers of the messages of Radev. Over 330,000 profiles are members of these groups, however, it is unclear how many of them joined before the names and purpose was changed.

Another place where Radev’s messages have been amplified was TikTok. Sensika did research which showed that the hashtag #руменрадев has been used approximately 5.5 million times even before the election campaign began. According to BFMI and Sensika’s report analysing the usage of TikTok found that “despite not having an official TikTok account, Rumen Radev had accumulated 90 million views on the platform through networks whose “behaviour can hardly be explained by organic activity alone.”” (source: MediaPool)

The donations

Rumen Radev claimed that people are “investing” in his party as they believe he will have them from the oligarchy. Numbers show that from 821 donations made during the campaign, 751 donations were made to Progressive Bulgaria with 623 of them being under the minimum wage amount in Bulgaria (620.20 EUR), which means donors didn’t have to declare where the money for the donation came from. Most of the donations are either 500 EUR or 600 EUR. 

This matters, because in 2016, the Bulgarian journalist Genka Shikerova traced a very similar pattern of donations into Radev’s presidential campaign – multiple people were donating only to amounts close to the limit after which they would have had to provide proof where they got the money from.

Radev’s own words

During his campaign, Radev has named multiple issues that negatively affect the Bulgarian population attributing fault to the “oligarchy and mafia”. However, no clear plan was introduced on how he and Progressive Bulgaria intend to tackle these issues.

One topic Rumen Radev was very precise on was his geopolitical stance – he is opposing the sanctions against Russia branding them “ideological”; he doesn’t believe that giving weapons to Ukraine actually helps them; and he claims that renewing dialog with Russia is a must if we Europe wants to have any safety.

Below are some quotes from him made during his campaign:

Radev on Geopolitics

“We, under all circumstances, must renew the dialog with Russia.”

“Bulgaria is the only Slavic and Eastern Orthodox EU member state, and this needs to be used, and we can really be a very important cog in this machine that, I am certain, will sooner or later start working, to re-establish relations with Russia. Because, in a purely geographical, economical, resource and market sense, we must re-establish relations [with Russia], if we want […] to have safety in Europe.”

Straight after voting, Radev told reporters the following:

“I hope that we will develop practical relations with Russia, based on mutual respect and equal treatment. … We have to respect our history, you know the role of Russia for liberating Bulgaria – this is very important and, of course, we will never forget. But today’s relations should be based on practical approach especially in economy, especially in security – I do believe that (there will) future steps to finally set the relations between Europe and Russia based on security agreement. This is extremely important for our future.”

Shortly after he was elected, Radev made the following statement:

“Bulgaria will pay efforts to continue its European path, but […] a strong Bulgaria in strong Europe need critical thinking and pragmatism. Because Europe has fallen a victim to its own ambition to be a moral leader in world without rules.”

Radev on the request from Bulgarian authorities to seek help from the EU regarding disinformation during the election campaign

“What does it mean to officially ask the EU to protect us from some hybrid external interference with our elections? Do you believe there is one? Have you seen it […]?”

Radev on education

“We have forgotten what used to be done in our schools as basic military training, and I think we should bring back some form of it. At the very least, our young people should know what to do in a crisis. […] They should still be able to handle weapons. They should have fired a gun at least once in their lives.”

Radev on publications that call him pro-Russian

“Have you noticed, what are the names under these articles? […] Often there are Bulgarian names – absolutely unknown people, the so called […] “middlemen” – a person with no fame, who, however, writes something, then publishes it in one such publication like the EUObserver – where, by the way, In some of these publications, you could also pay for a publication and publish it.”