Sergey Stanishev

Infobox Prime Minister
name = Sergey Dmitrievich Stanishev
Сергей Дмитриевич Станишев


caption =
order = Prime Minister of Bulgaria
president = Georgi Parvanov
deputy =
term_start = 17 August 2005
term_end =
predecessor = Simeon Sakskoburggotski
successor =
birth_date = birth date and age|1966|05|05|df=y
birth_place = Kherson, Ukraine
death_date =
death_place =
party = BSP
constituency =
spouse =
religion =
footnotes =

Sergey Dmitrievich Stanishev ( _bg. Сергей Дмитриевич Станишев, born May 5, 1966) is the current Prime Minister of Bulgaria and Chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).

Stanishev was born in Kherson in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) to a Bulgarian father, Dimitar Stanishev (from the village of Shtuka in Macedonia, present-day Republic of Macedonia), a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, and a Russian mother — Dina Muhina, lecturer in Slavic studies at the Sofia University.

Education and early career

Stanishev was educated at Moscow State University, where, in 1989, he wrote a MA thesis on “The role of the uniform for the fighting spirit of the soldiers in the Red Army”. In 1994, he gained a doctorate in history with a thesis on “The system of service promotion of high ranking officials in Russia and its evolution during the second half of XIX century”. In 1998, he specialized in political sciences at Moscow School of political studies. He was a visiting fellow in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1999-2000. He also worked as a journalist. In 1995 he became a staff member in the Foreign Affairs Department of the BSP. He was Chief of Foreign Policy and International Relations for the BSP from 1996 to 2001. In May 2000 he was elected a Member of the BSP Supreme Council and Member of the Executive Bureau. In June 2001, he was elected to the Bulgarian National Assembly for Ruse.Sergei Stanishev was a Soviet citizen and then Russian until 1996, when he acquired a Bulgarian citizenship and renounced his Russian one.

Chairman of BSP

In December 2001 Stanishev was elected Chairman of the BSP at the party's Congress, and also Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the Coalition for Bulgaria following the resignation of the former bearer of these positions Georgi Parvanov after his victory in the Presidential election in 2001. Since April 2004 Stanishev has also been a member of the presidency of the Party of European Socialists. Even though, at the beginning, older party members regarded him with suspicion due to his lack of experience, Stanishev has enjoyed considerable public approval mainly because of his great intellectual skills and his successful efforts to modernise the BSP.

Prime minister

In the general election of June 25, 2005, Stanishev was re-elected to the National Assembly, this time for a seat in Burgas. Under his leadership the Coalition for Bulgaria (a coalition dominated by the BSP) won 31% of the votes. Stanishev said that the next government "should be led by the party which won most votes in the elections." On 20 July, after nearly a month of political uncertainty, Stanishev agreed to attempt to form a Cabinet. On July 27, 2005 the Bulgarian Parliament chose him as the new Prime Minister in a coalition government with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The vote was 120 to 119. However, the parliament voted against Stanishev's proposed Cabinet by 119 to 117 votes.

This was followed by another two weeks of political deadlock. Finally on August 15 Stanishev was able to form a three-party grand coalition with the party of outgoing Prime Minister Simeon Sakskoburggotski and with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a Turkish minority party. Stanishev said the coalition's priorities would be "European integration, social responsibility and economic growth." He was elected Prime Minister by the Bulgarian parliament on August 16 with 168 in favour and 67 against. On August 17, 2005, with an official ceremony on 1 Dondukov Boulevard, Sergey Stanishev took office as Prime Minister.

Personal life

Stanishev, the second-youngest chairman of the BSP, is an unconventional politician. Although not married, he has been living for a long time with prominent journalist Elena Yoncheva. In 2002 he amazed party members when he came to a gathering at Buzludzha on a motorcycle with a rock-style jacket that had a label on the back saying: "If you are reading this, Elena must have fallen off on the way." Stanishev is an active Internet user. He joined the Internet Society - Bulgaria on April 22, 2001, and immediately following his election as leader of the Socialist Party in 2001, he had an ICQ-chat with hundreds of users.

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4631697.stm Power struggle looms in Bulgaria]
* [http://www.bsp.bg/ Bulgarian Socialist Party website]