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- WORLD, Page 76World NotesBULGARIASqueeze Play
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- Millions of jubilant Bulgarians celebrated the victory last
- week of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces over the
- Socialists, as the former communists are now called, in the
- nation's second multiparty parliamentary elections. "You are
- free! The age of communism in Bulgaria is over!" shouted U.D.F.
- leader Filip Dimitrov, who was later nominated to be Prime
- Minister.
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- The problem was that the center-right U.D.F. polled just
- 34.5% of the vote, to the Socialists' 33.5%. This means that the
- U.D.F., if it is to rule without the former communists, will
- need the support of the Turkish minority, whose party won 7.4%
- of the vote and 24 seats in the new 240-member parliament. But
- the ethnic Turks, who were widely persecuted under the
- communists, are asking for at least one ministry -- a demand
- that the Socialists, in turn, are using to fan fears of Turkish
- separatism. Exactly how the U.D.F. deals with this dilemma will
- demonstrate to what degree post communist Bulgaria is committed
- to multiparty democracy.
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