The European Parliament elections in 2024 in Bulgaria coincided with the national parliamentary elections. The results of those elections showed a high degree of political fragmentation. At the same time, there is a noticeable difference compared to the previous years, which under certain circumstances may develop into a new trend. There is a widening gap between the GERB party («Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria»), which once again took first place in the elections, and its closest rivals, whereas previously it was typical for Bulgaria to have a fairly close rivalry between the two leading parties. The article analyses the driving forces and the main vector of changes in the Bulgarian party system. The author hypothesises that the division of the political spectrum into two opposing camps, which characterized Bulgaria in the 1990s, did not end in 2001, with the emergence of the first successful populist project in the political life of the country, the National Movement Simeon II. It only transformed into a more complex scheme based on interactions between a wide range of players, among which two parties continued to play a leading role. From 1989 to 2021, one of the two key players was the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), heir to the Bulgarian Communist Party. The Socialists' loss of this status in 2021 caused a fierce struggle in the opposition camp for the right to succeed the BSP as leader of the political forces opposing GERB. This competition between the anti-GERB «protest parties» prevented them from forming a stable government and contributed to the prolongation of the 2021-2024 crisis, as well as to the decline in the credibility of the opposition forces. The victory of GERB in June 2024 double elections and its marked electoral superiority over its closest rivals was thus a natural consequence of the failure of the ‘protest forces' to replace the BSP as a recognised political alternative.