ABSTRACT
Bulgaria's movement away from political totalitarianism was relatively easily achieved, but its progress towards economic modernization on the western pattern was much slower and more painful. For half a decade after the fall of Zhivkov the dominant ideology was that of the Union of Democratic Forces, even when that group did not form the government. From 1995 to 1997 the successors of the communists, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, dominated parliament but the period was one mired in corruption. This led in 1996–7 to an economic crisis so severe that it brought about an early general election and forced Bulgaria to hand much of its economic sovereignty to an externally-imposed currency board. This produced a slow return to economic health under the Union of Democratic Forces but after its administration had run its full constitutional term it lost power in one of the Balkans' most remarkable elections, after which its former king became Bulgaria's prime minister.
