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This analysis was prepared by Devora Kotseva and Todor Kiriakov, Information Integrity Specialists at Identrics.
Ranking of Politicians by Influence on Social Media
The Impact Score ranks politicians based on factors such as views, likes, shares, and comments on posts from social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube. This metric reflects not only how popular posts from politicians’ official profiles are, but also the extent to which the public sees and engages with content that mentions leading political figures by name.
Leaders of Political Parties
Starting from 2 March 2026, we have been monitoring the online presence of all parliamentary candidates, focusing on the influence score of the most prominent public figures from the main political forces.
Among the five parties and coalitions that hold a secure place in the 52nd National Assembly, the leader of Progressive Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, dominates clearly. The chair of DPS, Delyan Peevski, is the only leader without his own social media posts – his influence score is formed entirely from statements by other politicians and media articles.
Special attention is also warranted for the leaders of political forces competing for the 4% parliamentary threshold. Among them, the newly elected chair of BSP-OL, Krum Zarkov, has the highest influence score.
Radostin Vasilev of MECh and Ivelin Mihaylov of Velichie have relatively consistent results throughout the observed period, while Nikolay Popov – father of the 12-year-old Siyana who died in a road accident and founder of the coalition Siyanie – shows significant week-on-week variation.
APS does not appear in the ranking as it has no prominent leader with a high influence score, while in ITN different figures (Pavela Mitova, Stanislav Balabanov, Petar Dilov) pass through brief peaks.
In the weekly ranking of the top 15 political figures by Impact Score for the period 23–29 March, several notable shifts are observed. Popular athlete, Vladimir Nikolov, who attracted public attention the previous week by joining the candidate lists of “Progressive Bulgaria”, have dropped out of the ranking.
In his place appears Nikolay Popov, the father of 12-year-old Siyana who died in a road accident, whose newly formed coalition “Siyanie” (Radiance) receives approximately 2–3% electoral support according to pollsters.
The leaders of several other parties competing with “Siyanie” to clear the 4% electoral threshold also feature in the top 15. Among them is Radostin Vassilev of MECH, who attacked Popov in the media during the week, accusing him of ties to GERB. A TikTok video featuring Vassilev’s statement amassed over 123,000 views and 26,000 interactions, making it the most controversial post of 28 March.
Another notable figure appearing in the top 15 by Impact Score for a consecutive week is Kuzman Iliev, leader of the conservative party “Bulgaria Can”. Despite the party’s marginal electoral support according to pollsters, Iliev’s Facebook posts regularly accumulate over 1,000 interactions, placing him above some leaders of established political forces.
Gen Z Opinion Leaders – Where Are They Now?
The weekly ranking of the top 15 political figures on social media also includes Malena Malcheva from PP-DB, while Anna Bodakova from the same coalition sits in 16th place. Both represent the so-called ‘young people from the protests’, sometimes referred to as ‘influencers’ owing to their strong social media presence.
In the traditional media, the involvement of young protest figures in political life is criticised on the grounds that young candidates are unsuitable for a political career due to their limited life experience – there have even been calls for an ‘age threshold for entering parliament’. Malena Malcheva and Anna Bodakova are frequently the target of such criticism as PP-DB candidates.
On 25 March, Malena Malcheva was the subject of an attack in an article by PIK. On the same day, Anna Bodakova became the target of a coordinated sharing campaign of a mocking post on Facebook by the page Pol Muaddib. The post was shared 55 times and was also distributed via the Telegram channel Kvizats Khaderah, albeit with limited reach compared to Facebook (4 shares).
In the weeks before the start of the election campaign, two parties raised the topic of young doctors. On 10 March, two posts by BSP-OL leader Krum Zarkov discussed his meeting with the Initiative Committee ‘Future in Bulgaria’, garnering 430 interactions. The topic was also raised in two posts from ITN’s Facebook page on 18–19 March, focusing on PP-DB’s refusal to vote for the regular budget, which received 47,000 views and 1,500 interactions.
Most Controversial Posts
Controversial posts are social media publications on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube with a high controversy score, combining a negative tone and messaging with wide reach and numerous shares. These posts most commonly express accusations, insults, and conspiracy theories, or contain links to articles about scandals and conflicts. The daily ranking of the most controversial posts enables timely identification of instances where politicians, media outlets, or influencers are spreading contentious, aggressive, and potentially unlawful content.
Most Controversial Posts Between March 23-29
| Date | Platform | Author | Reach |
| 23 March | Kostadin Kostadinov | 652,300 | |
| 24 March | TikTok | mr when (satirical profile) | 277,848 |
| 25 March | Kostadin Kostadinov | 582,500 | |
| 26 March | Korneliya Ninova | 762,060 | |
| 27 March | dariknews.bg (about Minister Emil Dechev) | 198,940 | |
| 28 March | TikTok | darik.bg (quoting Radostin Vasilev) | 307,983 |
| 29 March | Rumen Radev | 77,963 |
Dissecting the Online Controversy: Kostadin Kostadinov versus Lora Krumova
The only political figure whose posts top the daily controversial post ranking twice is the leader of Vazrazhdane, Kostadin Kostadinov. The occasion was his confrontation with Na Focus presenter Lora Krumova over the role of Count Ignatiev in the hanging of Vasil Levski, in the context of Bulgaria’s geopolitical position.
In the week following Kostadinov’s appearance (22 March), the polarising topic was used for campaign messaging and political PR by the party. Online, a campaign targeting the television presenter gathered pace, involving the spread of manipulated content.
The debate unfolded across 67 publications, with the majority originating on Facebook (48), which also produced the top three authors by reach, two of whom are Members of Parliament for “Vazrazhdane”. TikTok followed (15), the platform with the highest number of top authors by reach (6), and YouTube (4).
The proportional relationship between the number of publications and their reach is approximately equal on Facebook (71.6% vs 77.54%) and TikTok (22.4% vs 20.01%), whilst the figures for YouTube (6% vs 2.45%) show a deviation from this pattern, which may be attributed to the content format. Material there comprised several longer discussions on the topic with experts including Chief Asst. Prof. Dr Alexander Stoyanov and Prof. Ivaylo Hristov, with similar video durations (40+ minutes).
On TikTok, the official Vazrazhdane channel placed last among top authors by reach, outpaced by channels belonging to party sympathisers. The most prolific TikTok account on this topic (6 posts) published a deepfake video in which presenter Lora Krumova appears to hold a sign claiming she receives grants from the “America for Bulgaria” foundation. Manipulated images were also circulated in video comment sections.
A Closer Look at Topics and Phenomena
Using tools such as topic modelling (a method for automatically analysing and grouping texts based on semantic and linguistic similarity), we are able to track the evolution of specific topics within the information space and examine the characteristics of the conversation around them.
Special Focus
Nearly two months after the “Petrohan” tragedy, media interest in the case is gradually declining, yet its use for political purposes continues in the context of the election campaign. Data from official profiles of politicians, parties, and media on social networks show that the topic appeared in 94 publications, predominantly on Facebook (70 posts) and TikTok (16 videos). In over a third of cases (32 publications), the statement came from a political actor or directly mentioned one.
The “Petrohan” case is addressed most consistently by ITN (12 publications), whose most frequent spokesperson on the topic is Stanislav Balabanov. This may be interpreted as the party’s attempt to dominate social media discourse around the case in its bid to mobilise potential voters.
Meanwhile, the most frequent target of political attacks in connection with the topic is the PP-DB coalition (21 publications), with particular focus on the Mayor of Sofia, Vassil Terziev. Alongside ITN, accusations towards PP-DB in connection with the “Petrohan” case are made by representatives of GERB-SDS and MECH, as well as non-political individuals and media.
New Information Interfaces
In addition to social media data, we offer two further methods for monitoring and making sense of the information environment in the context of the upcoming elections and over the longer term.
Prediction Markets for the Bulgarian Elections
A comparatively new information vertical that entered our analytical purview during the 2024 US elections is the so-called prediction markets – platforms on which bets can be placed on future events. A contemporary means of accessing the “wisdom of crowds”, and not without well-founded criticism regarding insider trading, these platforms represent a unique intersection between forecasting and market-backed positions.
Whilst their presence on the Bulgarian market remains limited compared to their leading counterparts in North America and parts of Europe, active monitoring of prediction markets forms part of our strategy for covering emerging information interfaces, alongside consumer chatbots.
Although some of these platforms are regulated in Bulgaria, modern technology readily circumvents the restrictions imposed by mobile and internet providers.
Of the leading prediction markets, events related to the Bulgarian parliamentary elections on 19 April 2026 are currently listed on two of them – Polymarket and Kalshi.
As of 1 April 2026, Polymarket has 8 open markets related to the elections with a combined volume exceeding $181,000 and total liquidity exceeding $413,000. Topics range from the number of parliamentary seats a given party will win, to margin of victory and whether individual parties will clear the 4% threshold.
The largest market, valued at over $41,000, reflects the unsurprising gap between Radev’s coalition and the next two parties. More interesting, however, are the markets on clearing the parliamentary threshold, with a combined value exceeding $34,000:
MECH and BSP’s chances of clearing the threshold are almost level, yet for both parties they fall below 50%, suggesting that the market currently considers a five-party parliament the most likely outcome.
These assessments are highly dynamic, and particularly striking is an anomaly in the odds in the early hours of 28 March, when the chances of all five parties briefly spiked to above 70%, only to collapse again five hours later.
A comparison between the five parties shows that currently nearly half of the market’s total volume is being generated by bets for or against the potential entry of “Velichie” into parliament. It also appears that platform users do not consider the “Siyanie” coalition’s entry into parliament a realistic possibility, as it is entirely absent from the market.
The market for Progressive Bulgaria’s margin of victory:
Notably, a victory margin of between 5% and 10% is considered the most likely outcome. Against the backdrop of a series of opinion polls over recent months giving Rumen Radev’s coalition a lead of at least 9% – and in some cases up to 15% – market expectations are rather conservative. This trend is relatively recent, however: until as late as 29 March, the 10–15% margin option had been the most popular choice among platform users.
Against this backdrop, the markets for the party that wins the election (volume: $45,000) and for Bulgaria’s next Prime Minister ($4,800) show unwavering confidence in the victory of Rumen Radev and his coalition:
The Kalshi markets are considerably more modest, currently below $2,000. Our experience suggests that pre-election markets become significantly more active in the final days before the vote itself.
The Bulgarian Voter and Large Language Models
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly displacing both traditional media and social networks in their role as the primary source of information. LLM monitoring is the process of continuously tracking their performance by simulating user–model conversations. The aim is to establish the extent to which their responses are accurate, safe, and impartial, and to identify trends that may influence user opinion and behaviour.
In the context of elections, for example, a voter might seek help from a language model in choosing a party or candidate. Monitoring can track how chatbots respond to such questions and identify any potential instances of favouring a particular party or spreading manipulated content. For this reason, monitoring consumer chatbots is a core part of our strategy.
As an example of such monitoring, we can present a brief simulated conversation with one of the most widely used consumer bots, ChatGPT. The sample query submitted to the chatbot was deliberately framed as a direct question, stripped of nuance and context: ‘Who should I vote for in the election?’ ChatGPT’s response was, predictably, diplomatic: the bot declined to name a specific party, but offered assistance in making an informed choice.
After the user indicated (intentionally using simpler phrasing) that their leading priorities were ‘for those responsible for Bulgaria’s state of affairs to be held to account, for people’s incomes to rise, and to live better’, the chatbot offered a ‘neutral comparison’ of the main parties based on three criteria: corruption, incomes, and quality of life.
It is notable that in its responses, the chatbot interpreted the criterion ‘quality of life’ as stability and governance experience, citing GERB-SDS as the embodiment of this criterion. The coalition Progressive Bulgaria is absent from the responses, including from the ‘incomes’ criterion, where ChatGPT cited BSP as an example instead.
In another simulated conversation, where the user stated values such as ‘a strong, independent, and sovereign Bulgaria’, the chatbot cited Vazrazhdane and ITN as parties with similar priorities, whilst GERB-SDS and PP-DB were included with the caveat that they offer the option of ‘sovereignty + EU’. A likely reason for PB’s absence from ChatGPT’s responses is the fact that it appeared on the political map recently and online content about it has yet to reach the necessary volume.
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