DPS wanted to enter a coalition with the SDS at the beginning on March 1990, but most of our blue leaders were against it for various reasons then. This is what he said in the show “120 minutes” prof. Dimitar Luzhev.
He was an active participant in the events after November 10, 1989. One of the driving figures of the Round Table – the consultations in which the rulers and the opposition agree on how to make the transition from totalitarianism to democracy and from a planned to a market economy.
35 years ago at the same time, the streets of Sofia were filled with hundreds of thousands of protesters who wanted the repeal of Art. 1 of the so-called Zivkova constitution – a text that defines the BKP as “The leading force in society and the state”.
As a representative of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces, Dimitar Lujev participated in the decisions on the abolition of Art. 1, as well as in the dissolution of the political police (part of the former State Security).
He was elected as a representative in the VII Great National Assembly and as a deputy prime minister in the coalition government of Dimitar Popov. He was also the Minister of Defense in the government of Philip Dimitrov. He is also the first political adviser to the President Zhelio Zhelev.
„Back in 1986-1987. Mikhail Gorbachev does not hide his dislike for Todor Zhivkov and the other leaders of the socialist camp. Gorbachev and his entourage understand that they cannot do anything with the people of the Leonid Brezhnev era. Until 1988 however, he does not engage in them because he seeks to restore Russia's relations with the United States, as well as start internal perestroika, he said.
Prof. Luzhev commented on the events surrounding the overthrow of Todor Zhivkov. He indicated that it was very difficult for the former first to imagine that he had to step down from power after about 35 years at the head of the state.
„On November 9, his comrades in arms – Stanishev, Gyurov, Yotov and Mladenov, wage the great battle. They tell him he should step down, but he thought he would stay on as chairman of the State Council. Lukanov retroactively copied some heroic deeds, Prof. Luzhev.
He also recalled what happened at the Plenum of the BKP. “Zhivkov hoped that all these delegates, whom he promoted to their posts, would show loyalty to him and not just kick him out,”, he explains.
Prof. Luzhev believes that Todor Zhivkov's surprise is not because he will be removed from his post, but because of the disloyalty of his own people.