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Georgi Sedefchov Parvanov (Template:Lang-bg) (born 28 June 1957) has been president of Bulgaria since 22 January 2002. Parvanov became president after defeating his predecessor, Petar Stoyanov, in the second round of the November 2001 presidential election.

Views

He is in favour of Bulgarian membership of NATO and the European Union. He identifies himself as a socialist but left the Bulgarian Socialist Party after he had been elected president, as the president is not allowed to be a political party member.

On election, his programme was to be a 'social' president, with care towards poor, unemployed and disadvantaged people. Parvanov helped in the creation of a three-party coalition composed of socialists (BSP), liberals (NDSV) and ethnic Turks (DPS) which formed government on August 16, 2005.

Education

• Mathematics college in Pernik: 1975
• M.A. in History, St. Kliment Ohridski Sofia University: 1981
• PhD in History: 1988

Professional career

• Joined the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Communist Party as researcher: 1981

Main interest: the Bulgarian national issue and the early history of social democracy in Bulgaria

• Senior Research Associate: 1989
• Member of the Internet Society of Bulgaria since May 2001

Political career

• Member of the Bulgarian Communist Party since 1981 (renamed to Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP in 1990)
• Deputy Chairman of the BSP Supreme Council: 1994
• Chairman of the BSP Supreme Council: 1996
• Re-elected Chairman of the BSP Supreme Council: 2000
• Member of Parliament: 1994–2001
• Chairman of the Parliamentary Group for Friendship with Greece and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Radio and Television: 1994–1997
• Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Left and the Parliamentary Group of Coalition for Bulgaria: 1997–2001
• Elected President of the Republic of Bulgaria: November 2001. Took office: 22 January 2002.
• Ran for re-election in 2006. Won the first round with 65 per cent of the vote on October 22. As turnout was less than 50%, he faced ultranationalist Volen Siderov at the runoff on October 29. Parvanov won with more than 75 per cent of the vote.

Publications

Dozens of scientific articles, monographs and books, including:

• Dimitar Blagoev and the Bulgarian National Problem 1879–1917, (1988),
• From Bouzloudja to the Corona Theatre. An Attempt at a New Reading of Pages from the BSP's Social Democratic Period, (1995),
• The Bulgarian Social Democracy and the Macedonian Issue at the End of the 19th century up to 1918, (1997)
• Before and after the 10th, (2001).

"Agent Gotse" and the 2006 Elections

In 2006 Parvanov admitted that before 1989 there was a file on him at the former Communist Security Service (Darzhavna Sigurnost, or DS) under the nickname Gotse. The file, which, like most files of the Security Service, hasn't been released to the public, does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that he has actually been an agent at the DS, and those who have had access to it disagree as to what it contains. According to Parvanov's own statement, the file only shows that he had been consulted as a historian in conjunction with the writing of a memoir book about events from one hundred years ago (). That was confirmed by two members of parliamentary commissions that had examined the files of the Security Service earlier — Bogomil Bonev and Veselin Angelov (, ). Two other members, Metodi Andreev and Evgeni Dimitrov (,), accused the first two of lying and asserted that the historical research had only been a prelude, followed by Parvanov's consent to work as an agent and write a report about his institute. According to them, the sole reason why that information hadn't been released by the commissions earlier had been that Parvanov's consent had only been reported by the agent who recruited him and couldn't be confirmed in the way required by law, i.e. with a declaration or a report signed in his own hand. Parvanov's admission and the ensuing debates didn't decrease significantly his ratings prior to the October 22, 2006 presidential elections.

In the first round of the elections, incumbent Parvanov came first with 64.047% ahead of ultranationalist leader Volen Siderov with 21.486%, whom he had to face in a runoff, as Bulgarian law requires a turnout of 50% for a president to be elected in the first round. The voter turnout in the first round was 42.51%.

The second round saw a decisive Parvanov victory of around 75.9% as opposed to Siderov's 24.1%, meaning that Parvanov became the first person to be democratically reelected as President of Bulgaria. The turnout was 41.11%.

References and notes

1. ^ "Elections 2006: Final results for the country according to the Central Electoral Commission for the President and Vice President Elections" (in Bulgarian). Izbori2006.org. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
2. "Elections 2006: Voter turnout for the country as of 7 pm" (in Bulgarian). Izbori2006.org.
3. Zhelyu Zhelev, although having served two terms, was elected as a president not by popular vote, but by the National Assembly for his first term.
4. "41,11 % е окончателната избирателна активност в страната към 19 часа" (in Bulgarian). Focus News. 2006-10-29. Retrieved 2006-10-29.

Internal Links

• Bulgarian presidential election, 2006

External links

• The President of the Republic of Bulgaria - official website
• Georgi Parvanov in the news

Template:Persondata

• Presidents of Bulgaria
• Current national leaders
• 1957 births
• Living people