Word: bulgaria
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...Bulgaria was the most docile of the old Warsaw Pact states, and its bosses held onto the bobbing wreckage of the Soviet-era centralized economy long after the bloc broke up in 1989. The Communist Party, restyled the Socialist Party, has governed for four of the seven years since then, keeping 90% of the economy in the hands of the state. While inflation soared and wages plummeted, corrupt officials stripped the country of its assets, turning the rest of Bulgaria's 8.4 million people into some of the poorest in Europe. Bulgarians have had enough and are demanding that Parliament...
...party forced Videnov to resign the prime ministership last November, and to replace him the Socialists have designated the unpopular Nikolai Dobrev, the hard-line Interior Minister. But the new, anticommunist President of Bulgaria, Petar Stoyanov, who was sworn in this week to the mostly ceremonial post, is insisting the Socialists get together with the opposition Union of Democratic Forces on a reform program and a date for early parliamentary elections. The Socialists had been holding out for the official close of their term at the end of 1998, but last week they grudgingly proposed going to the polls...
...Finance Minister in the failed UDF government five years ago. He was not, however, a Communist Party member, and he has signed on for market-friendly policies in the past. If the Socialists don't go along, he says, it can only mean that "they want to put Bulgaria in the trash...
...SOFIA, Bulgaria: Call it the Belgrade method. Mired in an economic crisis, Bulgarians want change at the top, and they want it now. After daily protests by students and workers reached 100,000 people on Sunday in Sofia alone, the government agreed to meet with opposition leaders. The two sides will discuss holding early elections to replace an unpopular Parliament well before the scheduled 1998 elections. The demonstrations started last week when the Socialist Party insisted it would name a new premier without going to the polls. Socialist Premier Zhan Videnov resigned in late December, amid mounting criticism...
...from Bulgaria, and I'd rather stay here and do some work than go home and spend all that money," he says. "For me it's just not worth all the hassle to go back for only two weeks...