Shelju Shelev

Shelju Shelev (1990)

Schelju Mitev Schelew (also written Zelju Mitev Zelev, Bulgarian Желю Митев Желев ; born March 3, 1935 in Veselinovo ; †  January 30, 2015 in Sofia ) was a Bulgarian philosopher , politician and dissident . He was President of his country from August 1, 1990 to January 22, 1997 .

Career

Schelew comes from the village of Wesselinowo in northwestern Bulgaria; He completed his philosophy studies at the University of Sofia in 1958 and received his doctorate in 1974. He was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party , but was expelled for political reasons in 1965 and banned from Sofia; six years of unemployment resulted.

In 1988 he co-founded the “Club for the Support of Transparency and Transformation”. In 1990 Schelju Schelew became opposition leader of the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS), which was formed during the democratization process of the former People's Republic. On August 1, 1990, he was elected by the (constituent) 7th Grand National Assembly as the first democratically legitimized President of Bulgaria and confirmed in his office in 1992 in the first direct election according to the new constitution of 1991: after Schelev in the first ballot on 12. January 1992 had received the most votes with 44.66%, he prevailed in the runoff election a week later with 52.85% of the votes.

On October 9, 1991, in Bonn, Schelew signed the German-Bulgarian treaty on friendly cooperation and partnership in Europe.

Sheelev criticized the UN embargo policy against Yugoslavia in the early 1990s - the trade boycott cost Bulgaria around 40–60 million dollars a month.

His party withdrew his support in 1996 because of differences within the party; Petar Stoyanov , the victorious candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces in the subsequent presidential election, replaced him as President on January 19, 1997.

As a result, Schelew was politically active on a smaller scale: he became honorary chairman of the Liberal Democratic Union and the Liberal International ; In 1997 he established a foundation named after him. Sheev was also the initiator and president of the "Political Balkan Club", a union of former political leaders from Southeast Europe. He became honorary chairman of the Liberal Party in Bulgaria.

Shelev is the author of a number of books and publications; His most important work is the 1982 published and controversial book Fascism (Фашизмът) . He died on January 30, 2015 in Sofia at the age of 79 from complications from a stroke .

In his honor, Zhelev Peak in Grahamland on the Antarctic Peninsula has been named after him since 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Schelju Schelew  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography in Who's Who In Bulgarian Politics
• Literature by and about Želju Želev in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Chapter 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria of July 12, 1991.
2. ↑ Detailed election results at www.president.bg. (English).
3. ↑ Tony Barber: Serbia's neighbors count cost of sanctions: East European countries feel economic strain of international blockade. In: The Independent , March 22, 1993 (English).
4. ^ Funeral service for the former President Schelju Schelew. ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Report on bgnews.de from February 1, 2015, accessed on February 1, 2015.