Georgi Pirinski

Georgi Pirinski ( _bg. Георги Пирински) (born 10 September 1948) is a Bulgarian politician of the Bulgarian Communist Party and after 1990 of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). Born in New York City, U.S. in the emigrant family of Communist functionary Georgi Pirinski, Sr., he has roots from Pirin Macedonia. His mother Pauline was born in New York City and was a member of the Young Communist League at the City College of New York. She was a university professor of English in Sofia. His father found refuge in the U.S. after he participated in an unsuccessful Communist coup against the Bulgarian regime in 1923 and was expelled from the U.S. as an undesirable alien about 1951. In the late 1970's, Pirinski was an aide to then Deputy Prime Minister Georgi Lukanov and then at the age of 31 became Bulgaria's youngest deputy minister (of foreign trade). A rabid Communist during his youth, Pirinski later was regarded as having mellowed. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1974, but political opponents argued that the renunciation was judicially null. Pirinski was considered the BSP's favorite for the 1996 presidential nomination until the Constitutional Court barred him from participating in the presidential elections for failing to satisfy a constitutional requirement that the president be a Bulgarian citizen by birth (he was a U.S. citizen by birth).

A vice-premier during the Georgi Atanasov and Andrey Lukanov governments and a foreign minister during the Zhan Videnov government, Pirinski is the current Chairman of the National Assembly of Bulgaria since 11 July 2005.