Political Transition Of Soviet Union Essay

Introduction:

After Gorbachev came to power in 1985 a whole series of changes came for the Soviet Union and mostly the Eastern bloc. When the Berlin wall fell on November 9th, 1989 it was clear that the end of communism in that part of the world was coming and Bulgaria was part of that change as well. After being under communist rule for 44 years it was time for the country to transform into a democratic state, however doing that was harder than it looked like. How successful was the political transition of Bulgaria depended on factors that were in close connection to the economic and social transition as well. To begin with, Bulgarians had the choice to go through a peaceful transition or a violent revolution and fortunately for the country

A new constitution had to be made in order for the country to turn into a democratic state and the left and the right were able to work together for the creation of this document. Of course, there were still some tensions between the two parties and both were really keen to be in power, however there weren’t any confrontations taking place between the two. Both parties, the Socialist and Democratic, had opportunities to prove themselves on the government arena, but the Democratic Party seemed to have better understanding of how transition would work the best for Bulgaria. Finally, one of the main difficulties that the country had to overcome were the economic problems that arose during 1997 and that was the last step Bulgaria had to make in order to successfully go through it’s transition years. The transition in Bulgaria between 1989-1997 was a long process that through the unity of the people and parties was able to successfully change to a democracy. This whole period of Bulgaria’s history was important, because it put the basics of the country's

UDF was formed at December 7th 1989 and Dr Zheliu Zhelev was appointed as a chairman , later becoming the president of Bulgaria. They are the ones who would later organized public demonstrations whenever BSP was doing something contradictory to democracy. Both parties didn’t have much in common, except for the fact that they both had a vision of a democratic Bulgaria. Being able to overcome the differences was crucial to how well transition would go and it seemed like UDF had a harder time doing that. 15th of May 1991 UDF leaves Grand National Assembly, because of an argument about the constitution with the socialist party, however it didn’t take a lot of time for them to come back. National Roundtable Talks were organized between the leaders of UDF and BSP in order for them to come to agreements on how they need to carry out the transition and to make the new constitution of Bulgaria. They had to go through really hard negotiations and often had to make compromises towards each other in order for those talks to go smoothly. The Turkish minority was invited to participate in those talks as well, however none of the invited people decided to take part of this. The propositions from both sides of the roundtable were contradicting and it took a lot of time to come to an agreement. Controversies were mainly centered on the presidential institution, because the UDF wanted the elected government to