Following Sunday's election, Bulgaria woke up to find that their "new" President is the incumbent. Rumen Radev was re-elected for a second five-year mandate as Head of State. But one of his controversial statements during his debate on national TV against GERB-backed Anastas Gerdjikov, provoked reactions from the European Commission and the US Embassy. Radev had said that "Crimea is currently Russian", only to be sharply rebuked by foreign institutions who told him that Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
"The United States is deeply concerned by the recent statements of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in which he referred to Crimea as Russian," said the U.S. Embassy in Sofia in its statement.
President Rumen Radev wins new term
Not surprisingly, incumbent President Rumen Radev was reelected with 66.7% support - with 100 percent of the votes now counted. This is more than double the number of votes recorded by the other candidate, GERB-backed Anastas Gerdjikov, who won 31.8%.
"I do not think that what we did has been futile. We have had a considerable influence in changing the political style," said Gerdjikov in his first briefing after the initial results of the presidential runoff were announced.
President Radev, on his part, said that the Bulgarian people had shown a "clear will to pursue change, to say no to corruption, appropriation of public funds and lawlessness and elimination of the mafia's grip over the state". Only in Turkey and Morocco did Gerdjikov win more votes than Radev, according to the Central Election Commission (CEC)
Negotiations on coalition start tomorrow
The winner of the parliamentary vote - We Continue the Change (WCC) - today announced that it would invite BSP, DemBG, and TISP for discussions on a coalition government. Talks will start tomorrow and will last for six hours a day until Saturday, said the party in its statement. Eighteen different sectors, such as energy, regional development, agriculture, etc will be included, and every party should bring along its experts in the respective field, the party added. The consultations will be broadcast on Facebook.
Electricity price again goes through the roof
524 levs per MWh is what it sells for today, marking a new record. For the first time, the limit set by The Bulgarian Energy Exchange of 500 levs for MWh was exceeded. This was despite the availability of sufficient capacity that Bulgaria has and the surplus of energy that the country exports to neighboring countries.
High electricity prices hit almost all of Europe today. Forecasts are for these levels to remain at least until April 2022.
Following Sunday's election, Bulgaria woke up to find that their "new" President is the incumbent. Rumen Radev was re-elected for a second five-year mandate as Head of State. But one of his controversial statements during his debate on national TV against GERB-backed Anastas Gerdjikov, provoked reactions from the European Commission and the US Embassy. Radev had said that "Crimea is currently Russian", only to be sharply rebuked by foreign institutions who told him that Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
"The United States is deeply concerned by the recent statements of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev in which he referred to Crimea as Russian," said the U.S. Embassy in Sofia in its statement.
