Dimitar Iliev Popov (Pokriva) ( ; 26 June 1927 – 5 December 2015) was a leading Bulgarian judge and the first

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

of the country not to be a member of the

Bulgarian Communist Party The Bulgarian Communist Party ( Bulgarian: Българска комунистическа партия (БΚП), Romanised: ''Bŭlgarska komunisticheska partiya''; BKP) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria f ...

since 1946. He was also the first Prime Minister since 1944 who was not a Communist or a

fellow traveler A fellow traveller (also fellow traveler) is a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member. In the early history of the Sov ...

. Popov, who did not have any party affiliation and was chosen for his perceived impartiality as a member of the judiciary, was selected to head the new government after the resignation of Andrey Lukanov in December 1990 in the face of mass demonstrations and a

general strike A general strike is a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions ...

. As Prime Minister, Popov oversaw the drafting of the new

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

as well as the

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

open elections. Although overseeing the beginnings of the policy of

privatization Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

, Popov's government was more of a caretaker administration. Popov died at the age of 88 on December 5, 2015.

References

1927 births 2015 deaths People from Kula, Bulgaria Prime ministers of Bulgaria Bulgarian judges Judiciary of Bulgaria {{Bulgaria-law-bio-stub