1996 ODS presidential primary

SDS-United Opposition was founded in December 1989 as a coalition of 8 movements and 2 parties, later joined by 6 additional parties.^[2] Following the 1990 Constitutional Assembly election, the gridlocked Grand National Assembly elected a joint ticket of SDS's Zhelyu Zhelev and BSP's Atanas Semerdzhiev to serve as Chairman (President) and Co-Chairman of the republic in August 1990. In 1991 SDS suffered internal divisions, with a split between SDS-Movement^[a], SDS-Center, SDS-Liberals and BZNS.^[3] The Constitutional Assembly approved the new constitution in July 1991 with 313 votes in favour and dissolved itself. Following the subsequent 1991 election, Philip Dimitrov's SDS-Movement was the only SDS faction to enter the National Assembly, where it formed a minority government with the support of DPS.

Zheluy Zhelev was elected to a full presidential term term in January 1992 with SDS MP Blaga Dimitrova as his vice president. In August 1992 he called the Boyana meadows press conference, in which he withdrew his support from the SDS minority government. Following the press conference 23 MPs around Dimitar Ludzhev (nicknamed "blue ants") left the SDS parliamentary group and DPS withdrew its support for the government, which fell in October and presidential advisor Lyuben Berov became Prime Minister with the support of DPS and BSP.^[4] Zhelev's relationship with SDS continued to deteriorate with VP Blaga Dimitrova resigning in July 1993. She later became a harsh critic of him during the primary process and endorsed Petar Stoyanov. Following the 1994 election the BSP-led coalition formed a majority government, leaving DPS, SDS BZNS-DP, one of its splinter coalitions, into opposition.

Incumbent president Zhelev had announced his intention to run for a second term in November 1995.^[5] He wasn't supported by SDS, instead in April 1996 the 3 largest opposition coalitions announced they would hold a joint primary to determine their presidential candidate,^[6] to which Zhelev agreed to participate under internal pressure.^[7] SDS considered nominating a candidate outright (with SDS parliamentary group co-leader and MP Petar Stoyanov being the favourite), however they held an internal primary between three candidates - Stoyanov, Aleksandar Yordanov and Asen Agov^[8] in March, which was won by Stoyanov.^[9] BZNS-DP backed Zhelev and DPS remained neutral.^[10] The primary was held on 1 June and Stoyanov won with 66% of the vote.