site.bta35 Years Ago on November 10 Bulgaria Embarked on Path to Democracy and Market Economy

November 10, 1989, marked the end of a 45-year-long period of totalitarian rule in Bulgaria and the beginning of a transition to democracy and a market economy.

On that date, the upper crust of the Communist Party (BCP) ousted its secretary general Todor Zhivkov, who had been resisting the perestroika of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Zhivkov, who ruled Bulgaria singlehandedly for 33 years, was relieved of his post in the BCP at a plenum of the party's Central Committee just a day after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. This triggered a process of political changes in Bulgaria.

The call for Zhivkov's resignation was spearheaded by Politburo member Petar Mladenov and candidate member Andrey Lukanov. At the November 10 plenum, the BCP Central Committee accepted Zhivkov's resignation without allowing him to make a statement, and confirmed Mladenov as his successor at the party's helm. The plenum also proposed to the National Assembly to remove Zhivkov as President of the State Council of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (head of State).

On November 17, at the first National Assembly sitting after the plenum, aired live on TV, Mladenov was elected President of the State Council. The Assembly repealed Penal Code provisions criminalizing criticism against the government.

The BCP renounced one-party rule a month later, when its Central Committee adopted a package of decisions setting the nation on a course to parliamentary democracy and proposed a repeal of Article 1 of the Constitution, which had given the BCP a monopoly of power. The repeal of Article 1 was voted into effect on January 15, 1990.

In June 1990, Bulgaria held its first multiparty parliamentary elections after the changes.

Todor Zhivkov died on August 5, 1998, without being convicted of crimes committed during his rule. All charges against him were dropped after his death.