There has been no Bulgarian tradition of any long-standing resistance to the communist regime. There was neither any political opposition, nor any other kind of an influential dissident movement. Bulgaria never went through the purgatory of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, or the“Prague spring” of 1968. It is indeed difficult to find any counter arguments whatsoever against the cliché that Bul ­garia was the closest satellite of the Soviet Union. The fundamental contradictions within the Union of Democratic Forces(SDS) coalition were present from the very first day of its inception. There were Marxists who were longing for“socialism with a human face”, intellectuals with liberal ideas, social democrats and Christian democrats, conservatives and radical demo ­crats, monarchists and republicans. The members of the center-right coalition did not delude themselves about their differences; they rather shared the clear un ­derstanding that only a painful compromise could stand some chances against the Goliath of the totalitarian Bulgarian Communist Party(BKP). It was this unani ­mous opposition to the communist regime and its legacy that made the coalition possible. But only for a limited period of time. The United Democratic Forces(ODS) government under Prime Minister Ivan Kostov(1997-2001) completed the reformist agenda of anti-communism. At the end of the ODS term of office, Bulgaria was a country with a functioning market economy, stable democracy, and a clearly outlined foreign policy course towards the country’s accession to the European Union and NATO, which was accepted by all significant political formations, the Bulgarian Socialist Party(BSP) included. Since that time, no successive government has ever questioned these achieve ­ments. But anti-communism was doomed to fall prey to its own success. It is not its enemies, but rather its achievements that depleted its strength. Paradoxically, it is the implementation of its programme that made it dispensable. And just when the Bulgarian Right Wing was in the position to point at the indisputable achievements of its governance, it had to face the cumbersome task of renewing itself, this renewal being of an ideological, organizational, personal, and behavioural nature. Without denying the achievements, the right-wing vot ­ers came to pose new requirements. The emergence of a new party, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria(GERB) seems to meet their expectations and offers the possibility for finding a new formula for the development of the center­right political environment, namely the“peaceful and competitive” co-existence of the“new” and“old” Right Wing. November 2010