‘Did We Do That?’ Gen Z Protesters Help Tip Balance Against Bulgaria’s Leaders

Young Bulgarians turned out in protests that helped unseat their government. Whether that will translate into higher turnout in upcoming elections is up to them.

Having already undergone seven general elections in the past four years, Bulgaria’s political system has become more of a revolving door for new leaders and remains marred by chronic instability.

But as the country faces the prospect of yet another vote after its prime minister resigned and the government collapsed this week, a cautious glimmer of hope is rising that young voters may finally bring Bulgaria out of the morass.

In sheer numbers and through savvy social media campaigns, including on TikTok and Instagram, the generation of Bulgarians who were born around the turn of the century has been credited as a driving force behind the mass protests that prompted Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov to step down. Parliament officially accepted his resignation on Friday.

“I was very excited to see that a lot of Gen Z-ers took to the streets in big numbers,” Konstantin Tuzharov, a 24-year-old marketing specialist based in the capital of Sofia, said Friday. The movement marked the first time he had joined anti-government protests, which provided a sort of political baptism for him and others around the country.

Mr. Tuzharov said he was surprised by how quickly the protests pushed the government’s leaders to resign mere weeks after younger Bulgarians galvanized, in part through social media campaigns abuzz with unusually high engagement on political issues.

“I talked to my friends in disbelief: ‘Did we do that?’” he said.

In recent months, a wave of Generation Z-led protests has gained momentum around the globe, including in Indonesia, Morocco and Peru. They were credited with toppling governments in Nepal and Madagascar. In some cases, protesters said that their counterparts in other countries inspired them. The demonstrations in Bulgaria were the first of the movement to unseat a government in Europe.

Whether Bulgaria’s Gen Z will harness that energy into electing a steadier government remains to be seen.

Bulgarians have long been frustrated by enduring government corruption as well as years of democratic dysfunction. The problem is shared across much of Eastern Europe, particularly the former communist nations grappling with historical ties to Russia while turning toward the West.

While Bulgarians have staged waves of anti-corruption and anti-government rallies over the past decade, the most recent demonstrations appeared to be unparalleled in their size and level of emotion, said Dimitar Bechev, the head of the Dahrendorf Program at the European Studies Center at Oxford University in England.

But the next election — which President Rumen Radev has yet to set a date for — will be “the ultimate litmus test,” Mr. Bechev said. “If we see that turnout being at decent levels, then that will be a welcome sign that things are improving.”

“The younger generation has less tolerance for corruption,” he said.

Mimi Shishkova-Petrova, a political influencer popular among young people, said the recent protests felt different because of their scale and ability to unite those with diverse political views. Some of her followers joined the demonstrations after seeing her posts on TikTok and Instagram.

“People who once scrolled through TikTok for entertainment are now using it to stay informed and become politically educated,” she said.

Born roughly between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z accounted for about 13 percent of Bulgaria’s population of 6.4 million people at of the end of last year, according to the most recent government data.

As they have come of age, the public’s trust in Bulgaria’s government has remained low, standing at 29 percent last year, according to Globsec, a research group.

Voter turnout has been dismal. Only about 39 percent of eligible Bulgarians voted in the most recent parliamentary elections, in October 2024.

While the low turnout suggests that a majority of voters see little point in elections, the data also indicates that disillusionment with Bulgaria’s government has plateaued and that many have not yet given up.

The voter turnout average has been consistent over seven parliamentary elections since April 2021, according to data provided by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a pro-democracy research group.

The movement against Mr. Zhelyazkov’s government was touched off by a budget proposal that would have increased taxes and social security contributions to finance more public spending in Bulgaria, one of the European Union’s poorest countries.

It grew to encompass broader issues, including corruption by politicians believed to favor alignment with Russia, said Dimitar Keranov, a Bulgarian analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

While Russia maintains influence among some of Bulgaria’s political and economic elite, it is diminishing as younger citizens come of age, Mr. Keranov said. The shift increased after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Announcing his resignation, Mr. Zhelyazkov said he was responding to the demands of “people young and old, from different ethnicities and different religions,” who had protested in the tens of thousands in cities across Bulgaria over the past month.

Mr. Keranov warned on Friday that Bulgaria’s long-entrenched political elite may prove difficult to push from power. “I think we are a long way from change,” he said.

But he said it is also reasonable to expect younger Bulgarians to become more politically involved. “They’re fed up,” Mr. Keranov said.

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