Ex-king leads in Bulgarian polls

Simeon II has tapped popular disenchantment over low living standards

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- A movement led by Bulgaria's exiled former king, Simeon II, is poised for victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Opinion polls show the National Movement for Simeon II, founded by the 64-year-old ex-king in April, is well ahead of the centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Ivan Kostov.

A poll taken from June 8 to 12 by the National Public Opinion Centre, cited by AP, gives Simeon II's movement 42 percent of the vote.

It gives Kostov's Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) 28 percent, the Socialist Party 17 percent, and the mainly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms five percent.

Simeon II returned to Bulgaria this year from a five-decade exile that began when he left in 1946, at the age of 9.

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In a country where wages average around $100 a month and employment hovers at about 18 percent, low living standards are seen as the ruling coalition's greatest liability.

Simeon II's movement, seizing on the popular disenchantment, has proposed a zero tax on reinvested profits, higher wages, a balanced budget, and projects aimed at reducing unemployment and rooting out corruption, Associated Press reported.

"Give me 800 days and I'll improve your life," Simeon II said at his party's launch in April.

Opinion polls suggest Bulgarians are overwhelmingly inclined to honour his request.

Yet even if his movement wins, Simeon II has not indicated whether he will accept the premier's post.

Reports have speculated that the prize he really covets is the presidency, for which elections will be held in September.

A high court ruling requiring presidential candidates to have lived in Bulgaria for at least five years bars Simeon from contesting those elections.

But some observers say that the ex-king may nurture hopes that his supporters will revise the law to allow him to run for presdient, if they win power.

During Simeon II's absence from the country, communism came and went in Bulgaria.

But the transition to capitalism has been a sluggish affair, stymied by widespread allegations of corruption and international debts of about $1 billion that have discouraged investment in public projects and infrastructure.

Austerity measures

Since 1997, when Kostov's UDF took the helm of government by winning 137 of 240 seats in parliament, Bulgaria's eight million citizens have been on the receiving end of painful market-oriented reforms.

The austerity measures have reined in inflation, and boosted growth to 5.8 percent last year.

But while Kostov's macro-economic stability program has drawn plaudits from outside lenders such as the International Monetary Fund, many of the nation's 6.3 million eligible voters seem less impressed.

"The elections will turn into a categorical protest vote against the incumbent government," Kantcho Stoichev, from Gallup International's local affiliate, told AP.

During a recent walkabout of a Gypsy neighbourhood in the capital, Sofia, hundreds of well-wishers cheered "we want the king," Reuters reported.

Simeon's main rival - Kostov - has fought back by accusing Simson II of "wild populism" and appealing for more time to make his reforms work.

"Never before have we had such a rival," Kostov was quoted saying at a final election rally in the capital. "We have never met such arrogance and brazenness."

Kostov also pleaded for another term to entrench his reforms. "On Sunday we are facing a crucial choice - whether to embark on an unknown road or to choose to continue along the way which would lead us to a stronger and more secure Bulgaria, which would create jobs and well-being for its people."

Polls open at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) and close at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT).