Bulgaria's former King set to lead country

Voters in Bulgaria’s parliamentary election flocked yesterday to a party led by their former king, setting the stage for the first return by a monarch to politics in ex-communist Europe.

Preliminary results by the central electoral commission, based on 30% of the votes counted, show the former king’s party, the National Movement Simeon II, with 46%.

Running second was the governing Union of Democratic Forces with 20%; followed by 16% to the Socialist Party; 4.5% to the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which is made up mainly of ethnic Turks; and 4% to a new coalition of two centre-right parties, Gergyovden-VMRO.

Final official results are expected on Wednesday, and it won’t be known until after seats are assigned whether the National Movement will need a coalition partner to govern.

Some 66% of voters nationwide had cast their ballots, the central electoral commission announced.

At a news conference last night, Simeon said that he is ready to offer a coalition to ‘‘all parties who share our programme.’’

He outlined his priorities: stable economic growth, speedy admission into the European Union and NATO, a decisive against corruption and responsible government according to European standards.

’’I voted for democracy ... we all have to foster it,’’ the ex-monarch said as he cast his ballot in Sofia’s Gorublyane suburb. He said he was voting for the first time in his life.

’’The whole world is watching now the events in Bulgaria, to which I have contributed too,’’ Simeon said.

After five decades in exile in Spain, the 64-year-old ex-king Simeon returned to Bulgaria early this year to cheering throngs.

Initially hoping to run for president but barred by the courts because he hasn’t lived in Bulgaria long enough, Simeon set up his own political party to run in the parliamentary race.

Riding on a wave of widespread antipathy toward the current political elite, Simeon pledged to raise living standards, bring decency into public life and to fight corruption.

Simeon has refused so far to say whether he would deign to become prime minister.

Visibly touched by the huge crowd of journalists and supporters that waited outside the polling station, Simeon denied he had any desire to restore Bulgaria’s monarchy.

Simeon acceded to the throne in 1943, at the age of six, after the death of his father Boris III. He reigned under regents until 1946, when the communists called a referendum that succeeded in abolishing the monarchy. The royal family then went into exile, settling eventually in Spain.

Simeon’s party received strong support in some of the country’s most economically depressed mining areas. In Pernik, a mining town of some 100,000 about 20 miles west of Sofia, voters said they saw him as their only chance for a better life.

’’I voted for the king because he is our last hope,’’ said 30-year-old coal miner Dimitar Stefanov. ‘‘If he fails to get things right, emigration remains my only option.’’

Jobs at the town’s mine have been cut from 1,000 just one year ago to 150. Miners earn only around £100 and unemployment in the area is about 20%.

’’We helped the current government take power four years ago, but it cheated us,’’ said miner Tsvetan Borisov, 49, referring to the ruling Union of Democratic Forces of Prime Minister Ivan Kostov.

Borisov was among miners who blocked key roads in early 1997 in a nationwide protests that forced an unpopular Socialist government to quit.

Kostov conceded defeat last night, blaming it on the heavy burden of the reforms, while also admitting his own government’s mistakes and failures.

’’We demanded from the Bulgarian people to pay a higher price than the one they were ready to pay,’’ a grim-faced Kostov told journalists.

In all, 50 parties and coalitions were vying for the 240 seats in the unicameral parliament.

In the 1997 elections the Union of Democratic Forces gained 57% of the vote, the Socialist Party won 24% and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, 8%.

Simeon promised job creation programs, pay increases and tax cuts to spur investment in a country where the average wage barely tops £70 a month and nearly one in five workers is out of work.

His assurances of rapid improvement in the lives of ordinary citizens fell on fertile ground in a country where some 70% of the population live at or below the official poverty line.