The Green Party is a centre-left political party. It was founded in 1989 in Sofia as the Green Party of Bulgaria. The initiator for the establishment of the party and its long-time chairman was Alexander Karakachanov.
History
The Green Party was established on December 28, 1989 by Alexander Karakachanov and activists of the largest dissident movement "Ecoglastnost" under the name of The Green Party in Bulgaria and recorded in court in 1990 under the new Law on Political Parties. Right after its formation, the Green party became a part of the Union of the Democratic forces in Bulgaria, which was then a broad coalition of anti-totalitarian political parties and clubs. In the 7thGrand National Assembly the Green Party has 17 members of parliament and also is represented by two MPs in the 38th ordinary National Assembly. The Green Party is the initiator and the submitter of the official proposal for the accession of Bulgaria into the European Union in the 7th Grand National Assembly.
Merging
A small party called Green Bulgaria merged into the Green Party in 2008 The Green Party was renamed to The Green Party - Bulgarian greens where Stoyan Dinkov was the chairman of the Political Council. President after the merger is Alexander Karakachanov and the vice-president is Trifon Grudev from the former "Green Bulgaria".
Participation in elections
Since its establishment the party rarely comes alone in elections but in coalition with left-wing and centre-left forces :
1989 - Founding member of the coalition UDF. The Green Party has 17 MPs in the elections for the 7th Grand National Assembly.
2014, single party ballot-paper list elections for Bulgarian representatives in the European Parliament - winning almost 9000 votes, which represents 0.4% percent of the votes.
In 2005 the Green Party participated in the elections for the National Assembly under the "Coalition for Bulgaria" known as the "Triple Coalition". The Green Party had no elected representatives. The Green Party left the "Triple Coalition" before the end of the term due to fundamental disagreements regarding the Coalition’s policy. The main reasons were the neoliberal policies and unequal extortionate swaps of state forests made by the ruling Coalition. Green Party held a number of protests against these actions of the government and submitted "The law for restoring the swapped forests and lands". The famous conservationist Thomas Belev was nominated as a candidate from the civil quota in 2007. The party received 9976 votes and 0.51% of the vote. The party has not participated in elections for national or European Parliament. in 2009 and 2013. On presidential election. At the same time local elections were held and the party reach best results among all green parties. The best result it has registered is in the municipality of Blagoevgrad where it won 8.4 percent and has 6 MPs in the local parliament.
Participation in power
The Green Party is part of the UDF during the office of Philip Dimitrov in 1991 - 1992. During this time the chairman Alexander Karakachanov was supported by the UDF and elected as the mayor of Sofia. In the period 2005 - 2009 The Green Party is part of the ruling coalition - Coalition for Bulgaria, better known as the Triple Coalition, because it was supported by two other parties in parliament - MRF and NMSS. The Green Party received the position of the deputy minister in Stanishev government. Dimitar Bongalov, vice-chairman of the Green Party, was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice in charge of prisons, execution of punishments and supervising Chief Directorate "Execution of Punishments" at the Ministry of Justice. In 2007 the trust of the party was taken down from Bongalov who resigned as deputy chairman of the party, and later as deputy Minister. He was replaced by Ilonka Ivancheva-Raychinova again from the quota of the Green Party. Green Party left the Coalition for Bulgaria before the end of the government of Stanishev for principal disagreements with his policies.
