“It is important that the elections prove successful, in that we are watching what is now the eighth election in Bulgaria over the past five years, because, regrettably, the preceding period saw a failure to form a majority, or any majority formed proved extremely short-lived,” Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, told journalists.

Papuashvili stressed the importance of a stable majority government taking shape in Bulgaria.

“Last November, I was in Bulgaria and met with President Rumen Radev, who at that point had already made known his intention to stand in the elections. As you are aware, he resigned from the presidency in January, and it appears that his party is poised to emerge as the leading force in these elections, with the prospect of establishing a single-party majority. For us, bilateral relations with Bulgaria are among our priorities given our interests in the Black Sea region, and a government with a stable majority must be formed. I trust that this will indeed come to pass.

As for his positions, well, this is a well-worn trick, a movie we have seen before. Anyone who disagrees with Brussels on so much as a single matter is immediately branded pro-Russian. They branded Trump that way, too, incidentally, and as far as I can tell, his positions and Radev’s are not all that different. Georgian Dream was branded pro-Russian. Anyone with a head on their shoulders who dares to speak critically of Brussels, or to disagree with it on anything at all, gets branded pro-Russian. This is a propaganda technique developed by the intelligence services in an attempt to work against political opponents,” declared Shalva Papuashvili.