Bulgaria’s leaders promise elections

Press, 13 December 1989, Page 12

Bulgaria’s leaders promise elections

NZPA-Reuter Sofia Bulgaria’s leaders, bowing to public demands for democratic change, have promised free elections, dialogue with the opposition and an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. “We propose that the national assembly organise new, free democratic elections by the end of May,” the head of the Communist Party, Petar Mladenov, told the party’s decision-making central committee on Monday. He also said the party was ready to surrender its guaranteed leading role in government. “In the past the party won the people with political methods — now it must do so again,” Mr Mladenov told the committee in a closed session later broadcast by state television. A spokesman for the plenum, Mr Evgeni Alexandrov, told a news conference the party would ask the national assembly to scrap paragraph one of the constitution. This guarantees the party’s monopoly on power. He added the party favoured immediate talks with the country’s growing opposition groups. “Dialogue will begin immediately as soon as the sides interested in the welfare of the country are prepared to

sit down and negotiate,” Mr Alexandrov said. The promise of free elections, round table talks and the abolition of paragraph one seemed a direct response to demands made by tens of thousands of Bulgarians at an opposition rally on Sunday. It followed similar moves by the East German and Czechoslovak Communist parties, which have both given up their absolute grip on power. Like East Germany and Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria has undergone a whirlwind of political change in the last month, starting with the ousting of the veteran hard-liner, Todor Zhivkov, after 35 years in power. But many dissidents have dismissed Mr Mladenov’s policy changes and purges of unpopular officials as cosmetic and have demanded further moves, including the resignation of the entire central committee. . Mr Mladenov told the plenum that from Monday the length of office for party leaders would be restricted to two terms and that the leadership’s first term would expire on March 26, when the party would hold an extraordinary congress. The official term of office for leadership is five years.