Publishing and broadcast media

• Main national newspapers: There are 63 daily newspapers, including Duma, Zemya, and Trud
• Television stations: 4 services: 1 state-owned, 3 independent
• Radio stations: 10 services: 1 state-owned, 9 independent

State-run broadcasters retained an effective monopoly until the 2000 launch of a national commercial channel, bTV, owned by the international giant News Corporation. One group dominates the newspaper market, while political parties own much of the remainder. Internet providers are regulated. Journalists complain of the tough libel laws.

• Main languages spoken: Bulgarian, Turkish, Romani
• Population density: 71/km2 (183/mi2) (Population density medium)

The urban/rural population split

Religious persuasion

Ethnic makeup

Population age breakdown

The Communist era was marked by the active suppression of minority cultural identities. In the 1970s, Bulgarian Muslims, or Pomaks, were forced to change Muslim names to Bulgarian ones. Bulgarian Turks were particularly targeted in the 1980s. Linguistic and religious freedom was granted in 1989, but 300,000 Turks, or 40%, still left for Turkey – an option denied to Pomaks. The farming skills of the Turkish community have traditionally been important, but many Turks have been left landless by recent privatizations, causing new waves of emigration.

Roma suffer discrimination at all levels. It is thought that the number of Roma is much higher than officially recognized, since many disguise their ethnicity in an effort to avoid persecution. Other minorities include Russians, Armenians, and Vlachs.

Women have equal rights in theory, but society remains patriarchal, especially among Turks.

• Dates of last and next legislative elections: 2001/2005
• Head of state: President Georgi Purvanov

Bulgaria is a multiparty democracy.

Profile

Having moved falteringly to a pluralist democratic system after the fall of the communist Zhivkov regime in 1989, Bulgaria suffered during the 1990s from successive weak governments, each brought down by no-confidence votes.

The UDF, a broad anticommunist alliance, fell from office in 1992, and by the time of the 1994 general election the former communist BSP appeared to be firmly in the ascendant, winning an overall majority. The BSP government resisted political and economic change; the result was one of the slowest privatization programs in eastern Europe, with the old communist web of patronage still intact.

A new UDF government in 1997 launched free-market reforms backed by the IMF. Its considerable success, and reorientation of policy toward the goals of EU and NATO membership, allowed the UDF to approach the June 2001 elections with some confidence, despite a surge in support for a monarchist party launched by ex-king Simeon II (who had left Bulgaria as a small child in 1946). The poll, however, left the UDF with fewer than a quarter of the National Assembly seats, exactly half of which went to the NMS II.

Bulgarianizing his family name, Prime Minister Simeon Saxecoburggotski formed a coalition with the MRF (which traditionally represents the ethnic Turkish minority) and in 2002 secured cooperation from the BSP and the UDF. However, the government's popularity has declined as its promised "spiritual and economic revival" has been slow to unfold. Divisions within the ideologically vague NMS II and revitalized opposition from the BSP and UDF threaten the government's survival.