BULGARIA: parliamentary elections Narodno Sobranie, 1994

  On 8 September 1994, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Liuben Berov – who had been in office since December 1992 at the head of a non-party “government of experts” – resigned after having been the subject of several motions of no confidence which had led to a largely hamstrung Parliament. On 17 October, President of the Republic Zhelio Zhelev dissolved the National Assembly and called for early elections. Ms. Reneta Indzhova thereupon became Bulgaria’s first woman Prime Minister in a caretaker capacity.

The December general elections were the third to be held since the transition to a multiparty system in 1990. Main contestants for the 240 Assembly seats were the formerly communist Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which had held power until the general elections of October 1991 and which was led by Mr. Zhan Videnov; and the staunchly anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), the largest group in the outgoing legislature headed by Mr. Filip Dimitrov but increasingly weakened by splits within its ranks. Debate during the month-long campaign focused to a great extent on economic issues, the BSP favouring deliberate free-market reforms and vowing to counter the country’s decline in this sector, as well as social policy questions.

Polling day, marked by an abstention rate of some 25%, resulted in a large victory for the BSP which, together with two minor allies, gained control of an absolute majority 125 seats to the centre-right UDF’s 69. Observers interpreted this outcome as reflecting popular discontent over lingering economic instability (especially continued high inflation and unemployment rates) and falling living standards, as well as expectations for more active security and social policies, and compared it to the ex-communists’ resurgence in recent polling held in Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Altogether five parties or groups – including three smaller centrist ones – arrived at the threshold of 4% required for membership of Parliament: a greater overall representativity than in the previous legislature.

On 25 January 1995, the National Assembly approved a new BSP-dominated Cabinet. The same day, Prime Minister Videnov, aged 35, announced that his Government’s priorities would be to overcome the economic crisis, reduce the alarming crime rate, promote European integration and improve bilateral relations with other European nations.