What Comes After Z?

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Generation Z (Gen-Z) flooded streets around the world to protest government corruption.

Demonstrations spearheaded by young activists spread to nearly every continent, beginning in Kenya and Bangladesh in 2024 and expanding to Nepal, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru, Bulgaria and beyond. Each movement was typically sparked by a corruption scandal or unpopular policy proposal. While the ideological alignment of each movement varied, a general trend of anti-corruption demands and organizing via social media united them. Indeed, protestors across the globe saw similarities in their movements, adopting a single banner and sharing their experiences online. Bangladesh, one of the first countries where protests made a splash, and Bulgaria, one of the last, both held elections early this year, shedding light on the electoral dynamics of these movements.

Bangladesh was a harbinger of what would become an international trend. Beginning in June 2024, a series of student-led protests began, sparked by anger over the reinstatement of a job quota that would have reserved 30% of government posts for the children of freedom fighters in the country’s 1971 independence war. Protesters alleged these quotas would further cement the power of the Awami League, the party of then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that had led the independence war. Hasina’s time as prime minister was marked by consistent democratic backsliding and consolidation of power in her and her party’s hands.

Violent repression of the protests ensued, but quickly backfired on Hasina’s government, driving more people into the streets. Brutal violations of fundamental rights led to the deaths of an estimated 1,400 protesters that summer. On August 5, 2024, the military refused orders to shoot unarmed protestors near the prime minister’s residence, culminating in Hasina fleeing to India and ending her 15-year tenure as Bangladeshi prime minister.

The caretaker government installed after Hasina’s ouster included representatives from major student movements. Despite high hopes that this new coalition could pass major reforms ahead of elections, it was only able to deliver on some of its promises due to bureaucratic resistance and the inability to achieve political consensus. Nevertheless, one of its major achievements was the drafting of the July Charter, a blueprint for future reforms, approved in a referendum held concurrently with the February 2026 elections organized by the interim government.

And yet, while the reform package was approved with 68% of the votes, the National Citizen Party (NCP), formed by students ahead of the elections, won only six seats in parliament. Adding to the disappointment, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which won a two-thirds majority in the election and was the main opposition under Hasina, seems to be wavering on passing the necessary constitutional amendments and legislation to implement the July Charter, despite being a signatory. The path forward for reform looks to be filled with roadblocks.

In Bulgaria, one of the latest countries faced with protests in the global Gen-Z movement, unrest began in November 2025. Anger over tax increases in the Zhelyazkov government’s 2026 budget proposal combined with lingering frustrations over corruption. Bulgaria had been tied with Hungary for the lowest score among EU members on Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. When protesters hit the streets, they consistently called out two longtime figures of Bulgarian politics. Boyko Borissov, the leader of the then-ruling GERB party and a three-time prime minister, was widely perceived as both corrupt and covertly directing Zhelyazkov’s GERB-led minority government despite holding no formal post. The other, Delyan Peevski, whose party provided critical support to GERB while not being a formal coalition member, is an oligarch under sanctions by the U.S. and UK for corruption.

By December 2025, the government’s budget proposal had been withdrawn and the government had resigned. In the snap elections that followed, President Rumen Radev resigned his post early to form a new coalition, Progressive Bulgaria, and run in the election. His party won nearly 45% of the vote and the first absolute parliamentary majority in decades. GERB and Peevski’s DPS party both lost significant support. Polling suggests that Radev attracted a third of the youth vote, while 22% went to pro-European coalition PP-DB. Radev’s campaign rhetoric focused on fighting corruption, but concerns remain over how committed he will be to fighting democratic backsliding and kleptocracy due to his publicly pro-Russian stances. However, his willingness to consider working with PP-DB to pass broader judiciary and institutional reforms is a positive sign that, in the end, suggests that he may deliver on reforms.

Bangladesh and Bulgaria both demonstrate the power and peril of youth protest. Each saw Gen-Z rally to topple governments they saw as corrupt and usher in new political eras. In Bangladesh, a 15-year entrenched autocrat was dislodged, while Bulgaria’s years-long political crisis may now stabilize. Nevertheless, both movements face uneasy paths forward in implementing desired reforms. Whether founding their own party or hanging hopes on more established figures, both movements must confront the distinct possibility of reforms losing momentum. These two cases underline the reality that translating the energy of protests into genuine change or lasting political institutions is far from easy.

However, important lessons emerge from both countries. Bangladesh offers a clear example of movements simultaneously forging multiple paths to change. The interim government’s referendum gave the July Charter a considerable popular mandate, providing a source of political pressure on the ruling BNP and a political rallying cry should the party fail to live up to its commitments as a signatory. Despite the youth-led NCP’s failure to secure many seats, the path to reform via pressure and popular demand remains open. The experience of Bulgaria shows that anti-corruption campaigns can appeal to more than young voters, even if youth protests are what cause the first domino to fall.

These Gen-Z-led efforts demonstrate that, although the future is uncertain, youth protest can be a crucial catalyst in opening the door to large-scale, systemic reform.

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