Fractured Bulgarian Agrarians Vow to Unite for Elections

Bulgaria's many agrarian parties, which have been increasingly disunified and marginalized over the last 20 years, might come together for local and presidential elections 2011.

This was announced by the chairman of the Agrarian People's Union Stefan Lichev Monday, who said his party is conducting talks with other formations for a joint appearance in the upcoming elections.

Bulgaria now has as many as 19 agrarian parties, with some in coalition with Bulgarian transition arch-rivals Union of Democratic Forces and Bulgarian Socialist Party.

In recent years there has been persisting talk of a unification of the Bulgarian agrarian movement, but no results have been achieved this far.

The recent history of Bulgaria's agrarian parties has been marked by progressing fragmentation and marginalization, with Lichev splitting from right-leaning Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union led by Anastasia Mozer in 2006.

Monday Stefan Lichev commented that people sympathetic of the agrarian cause desire for a stronger agrarian movement, but that depends on the leadership of parties.

He claimed that if agrarian parties unite, they can muster as many as 150,000-200,000 voters.

The agrarian movement was particularly strong in the beginning of the twentieth century in European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Romania, defending the interests of people from the countryside and raising slogans of social responsibility and equal development of all parts of the country.

The Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union was founded in 1899. Its great leader Alexander Stamboliyski was Bulgaria's Prime Minister 1919-1923. His government was violently overthrown by a military coup and Stamboliyski himself was brutally assassinated in 1923.