Petar Stoyanov
Petar Stefanov Stoyanov (born May 25, 1952) was the president of Bulgaria from 1997 until 2002. He won the 1996 presidential election as a candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces. He received more votes than the socialist candidate Ivan Marazov and the Bulgarian Business Block candidate, George Ganchev in the first round. He then defeated Marazov in a runoff. In the first round of the 2001 presidential election he finished in second place, as Georgi Purvanov received 36.3%, Stoyanov received 34.9% and the third major candidate, Bogomil Bonev received 19.2%. Stoyanov lost the subsequent runoff with Purvanov 53.3%-46.7%. After leaving office he refrained from media attention for some time.
Later, however, Stoyanov returned to active politics. In 2005 he was elected member of the 40th National Assembly. After UDF's inadequate result at the elections (8.4 % of the popular vote and 20 out of 240 seats) he blamed party's leader Nadezhda Mihailova and criticized her policy. On October 1 2005 the UDF National Conference elected him Chairman.
CV
- 1976 Law Degree from the "Saint Kliment Ohridski" University of Sofia.
- 1978 - 1990 Practicing lawyer. (and extensively worked for the national security agencies)
- 1990 Spokesman of the Union of the Democratic Forces (UDF) in Plovdiv (Bulgaria's second largest city).
- 1992 Deputy Minister of Justice in the first non-communist (UDF) government of Bulgaria since 1944.
- 1993 Resigned from office after the dismissal of the UDF government.
- May 1993 President of the UDF Legal Council.
- 1994 Elected Member of the 37th National Assembly (Bulgaria's Parliament). Deputy Chairman of the UDF Parliamentary Group. Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Youth, Sports, and Tourism.
- 1995 Deputy Chairman of UDF responsible for domestic policy.
- 1 June 1996 Having won the primaries with 66 % of the 870 000 votes cast Petar Stoyanov was nominated Presidential Candidate of the United Democratic Forces.
- 3 November 1996 Elected President of the Republic of Bulgaria by winning 2 502 517 votes equal to 59,73 % of the votes cast.
- 19 January 1997 Sworn in President of the Republic.
- 22 January 1997 Stepped into office.
- 2005 Elected Member of the 40th National Assembly. Member of European Integration Committee. Member of State Administration Affairs Committee.
- 1 October 2005 Elected chairman of the Union of Democratic Forces.
Stoyanov speaks English and German. He is married with a daughter (born 1990) and a son (born 1979).