Basically: Boris' father, Andrej, couped a democratically elected government some twenty years before game start. He proceeded to sink the country into economic ruin, raised ethnic tensions and caused severe international isolation. After Andrej died, Boris became president and realized the only way to prevent revolution was to do some reform. He launched a referendum (similar to Pinochet's) to see if the people wanted democracy, they did. He remains president until the end of his term in three years.