Why Bulgaria Became a Success Story for the Gen Z Protests

Over the past two to three years, protests led by Generation Z have erupted across a range of political systems worldwide. While some of these protests have forced governments to resign and public demands to be met, others have dissipated or been repressed without producing concrete political results. Bulgaria stands out as a one of the success stories. Within less than three weeks of mass mobilisation in late 2025, the country’s government had resigned, and a forthcoming parliamentary election is expected to substantially reconfigure the political landscape. Why were the protests in Bulgaria successful, and how did this outcome occur?

Mapping the global Gen Z revolt

Protests led by Gen Z have become a defining political phenomenon, spreading from South Asia and North Africa to Eastern Europe and Latin America. Despite vast differences in the regime types and economic development of the countries concerned, these mobilisations articulate similar demands for political accountability, social justice and an end to corruption.

Organised through leaderless networks and amplified by social media platforms, these protests draw on shared pop-cultural symbols and transnational diffusion, with movements in one country inspiring mobilisation elsewhere. While many such uprisings have faced violent repression, military intervention or stalled outcomes, some have opened a space for political shifts.

Bulgaria: three weeks that led to a resignation

International media coverage initially misinterpreted the Bulgarian protests. Given the country’s planned accession to the eurozone in January 2026, some foreign outlets framed the demonstrations as opposition to the euro. This interpretation, however, overlooked the core political dynamics at play.

The protests began on 25 November, triggered by a controversial budget that would have increased taxes. But the vote to approve the budget merely ignited long-accumulating public resentment towards the influence of informal and opaque power networks.

At the centre of this discontent were increasingly explicit attempts by the oligarch Delyan Peevski, leader of the DPS – New Beginning party, to consolidate political power alongside Boyko Borisov, a three-time prime minister and long-time leader of the conservative GERB party. Protesters blamed Peevski and Borisov for corruption and nepotism in all areas of public life.

The protests expressed growing distrust of public institutions and political leaders, driven by repeated corruption scandals and a perception that key decisions were being made far from public scrutiny. The protests thus articulated a familiar yet unresolved demand: a new model of governance beyond oligarchic control, with an independent judiciary, accountability, and transparency.

Why the Bulgarian protests succeeded

The protests in Bulgaria were successful because of four interlocking factors: strong organisation, the demonstrations’ popularity, a shift in the protesters’ expectations, and a protest-sensitive political system.

First, while the protests were driven by decentralised mobilisations of mostly young people, they had a fluid organisational structure. Most street demonstrations were announced and held by the reformist coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria and its youth organisations. Support for the protests also came from powerful civil society organisations fighting for the rule of law as well as from other opposition protest parties

Students and young people were vital in mobilising support online through TikTok, Instagram and Facebook groups like Active Politics as well as civic initiatives, such as Future in Bulgaria, organised by young doctors. People from Roma and Turkish minority groups were also prominent participants in the demonstrations.

Strategically, the protests’ leading spokespeople maintained a broad, unifying focus on demanding the rejection of the budget and the resignation of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s government. This approach expanded the social base of the protests and reached citizens across the country, resulting in demonstrations in more than 20 cities.

The second factor was the popular nature of the protests. On 10 December alone, between 100,000 and 150,000 people demonstrated in Sofia, and several thousand in other cities – the largest protests in recent years. According to a survey by polling agency Myara, 71.3 per cent of Bulgarians supported the protests, and almost 50 per cent agreed with the demand that the government should resign.

TikTok played a crucial role in mobilising support. Prominent influencers, actors, and public figures with hundreds of thousands of followers openly supported the protests and actively mobilised their audiences. Social media was used extensively to construct a shared protest culture through new songs, memes, and video clips. Unlike earlier protest waves organised primarily through Facebook – often confined to urban, educated social bubbles – TikTok expanded mobilisation to new social groups, including smaller towns and politically disengaged youth.

Third, the protesters had different expectations from their predecessors. Gen Z in Bulgaria grew up in a fundamentally altered sociopolitical context. Unlike the so-called children of the transition, who were raised amid poverty, insecurity, and constant adaptation, Gen Z came of age in an EU member state characterised by higher incomes, mobility, and opportunities, yet also by more than a decade of political stagnation under the hegemony of Borisov and Peevski. As a result, Gen Z reject political appeals to patience or deferred prosperity. This shift in expectations created fertile ground for rapid mobilisation during a period of uneven but tangible economic growth.

The final and most important factor is structural. Bulgaria has a protest-sensitive political system that combines an exceptionally strong civil society with a divided political class, extremely low trust in institutions and political volatility. This imbalance is not new. The 2025 demonstrations were the sixth mass protest wave in Bulgaria in the last 36 years. In each previous case, the country experienced a recurring cycle of protest democracy: accumulated discontent transformed into mass protests and opened a space for new political parties. What changed in the latest instance was the speed of the mobilisation.

Unlike hybrid regimes such as Serbia or Georgia, where the ruling elites' strategy is to suppress protests through repression and smear campaigns, Bulgarian elites tend to view resignation and early elections as a means of appeasing the protesters. While this strategy may prevent even larger protest movements, it also leads to quicker political concessions.

What next for Bulgaria?

Bulgaria has entered a critical phase in which the central challenge is to translate voices from the street into political power, amid expectations of higher turnout in the next election, driven by young voters, the diaspora, and previously disengaged citizens. The entry of former President Rumen Radev into party politics further increases uncertainty about the country’s political trajectory.

Judicial reforms would require cross-party cooperation. Whether the current mobilisation leads to lasting transformation will therefore depend on the capacity of political elites to negotiate a national consensus in an increasingly polarised political system. Ultimately, the key question is whether this protest cycle will enhance Bulgaria’s democracy or reproduce the familiar pattern of disappointment and renewed protest mobilisation.

Dr Ivaylo Dinev is a political scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at ZOiS, where he coordinates the KonKoop research network’s multi-method data laboratory. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.