This document is historical : two warriors for Democracy and friends seat together at the Crans Montana Forum session of 1996 : Mr. Bronislav Geremek, Co-Founder of Solidarnosc and Mr. Jelu Jelev, first democratic President of Bulgaria. Both of them were presented with the Prix de la Fondation.

Mr. Jelu Jelev, a philosopher and communist-era dissident who became Bulgaria’s first democratically elected president, died Friday, his family said. He was 79.

As in other East European countries abandoning Stalinism, Bulgarians chose for the presidency an intellectual untainted by a Communist past.

In 1990, the parliament picked Jelu Jelev to become president. He then won in a nationwide presidential vote in 1992, and served until 1997.

He appeard to be the key man to implementing Democracy in Bulgaria. We will miss him.

In 1996, Jelu Jelev was the Guest of Honour of the annual session of the Crans Montana Forum in Switzerland and was presented with the Prix de la Fondation by Mr. Flavio Cotti, President of the Swiss Confederation.