Bulgarian opposition leader Kiril Petkov resigned from both his political party and the Bulgarian parliament on Wednesday, June 25th, as a corruption scandal took shape around him.
The announcement follows the departure of several of Sofia’s regional mayors, all from Petkov’s organisation Prodalzhavame promyanata (We Continue the Change). The ex-prime minister, who held office between 2021 and 2022, had been linked to preferential treatment of various property developers—not least through the actions of his colleagues in municipal government. These include Sofia deputy mayor Nikolai Barbutov, who quit the same day, after anti-corruption questioning on Tuesday, June 24th, and a leaked recording that highlighted his role in public procurement.
Petkov claimed to be “terribly disappointed” by the allegations, although some members of his former party, without evidence, spread rumors against those departing the organisation by suggesting their actions had been orchestrated by rival political factions.
We Continue the Change and its allies finished second in the October 2024 elections with 14.2% of the vote. Previously, Harvard-educated Petkov led a pro-European Union government that became increasingly hostile to Moscow and Skopje. He then failed to build a pro-Atlantic coalition with rivals Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) that would have prolonged his position of power. Like many ‘Soros liberals,’ Petkov made ‘anti-corruption’ a central theme of his campaign—making it all the more ironic that allegations of corruption contributed to his departure from parliament.
