Bulgaria's PM concedes poll defeat

Polls predict the former king is heading for victory

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria's Prime Minister Ivan Kostov conceded his UDF party has suffered "a heavy election defeat" in a parliamentary election at the hands of a new movement led by former King Simeon II.

Kostov told a news conference the main reason was that his government was trying simultaneously to stabilise the country after a grave economic crisis in 1996-1997 and carry out reforms.

"We have taken a lot of unpopular decisions and also made mistakes," Reuters reported Kostov as saying.

"We wanted the voter to pay a higher price than he was prepared to pay."

A visibly elated Simeon told a news conference: "After today, Bulgaria is different.

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"Together, we are embarking on a path of economic and moral renovation. It will not be an easy one, there will be many obstacles but we will not give up."

Latest projections said Simeon's movement was likely to get some 43 percent of the vote, roughly double the backing for the UDF.

Simeon's movement is less than two months old.

Results of most exit polls, conducted by several agencies and broadcast on television, gave it early twice as many votes as the ruling UDF, with the Socialist Party of ex-communists was third and the ethnic Turkish MRF party a distant fourth.

It was not immediately clear whether Simeon's movement would win enough votes to form an outright majority in the 240-seat single-chamber legislature.

But his aides immediately invited Kostov's camp to join the future government, despite a fierce anti-Simeon campaign by the UDF in the run-up to the poll.

"We are very happy about the election result and our position about forming a coalition government remains unchanged, even if we win a clear majority," Plamen Panayotov, number two in Simeon's movement, told Reuters.

He said "natural partners" for the movement would be the UDF-led coalition and the MRF.

Voters flocked to the polls on Sunday, setting the stage for the first return to politics by a monarch in ex-communist Europe.

Based on exit polls with an expected voter turnout of 70 percent, Gallup Bulgaria, an affiliate of Gallup International, projected 42 percent for the former king's party, the National Movement Simeon II.

Kostov, in the run-up to the vote, had dismissed the idea of a broad coalition, saying it would put all parties in power and leave the Bulgarian people in opposition.

Popular Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski told Reuters a broad coalition was "the best option for Bulgaria."

"Now the most important thing is that parties accept the election results and form a broad coalition government," he said, adding that the Socialists should be excluded.

Dimitar Abadzhiev, deputy chairman of the UDF executive council, said however it was "too early to decide."

"Bulgaria has lost its historic chance to continue along the path of reforms. We are about to have an unstable parliament. If it is true that this was a vote of punishment, the whole of Bulgaria will be punished," he said.

The bulk of Simeon's support comes from those who have become disenchanted with plunging living standards in a decade of alternating cabinets of the UDF and Socialists.

"The king will teach them all a lesson, he will show them they can't do whatever they want," said Petar Zlatev, a middle-aged electrical technician, after casting his ballot.

"People are sick and tired of being robbed over and over again."

Official results for parties and coalitions are due within four days, and for individual seats in seven days.

Simeon was exiled from Bulgaria at the age of nine -- three years after acceding to the throne -- after a rigged referendum abolished the monarchy in 1946. He ran a consultancy in Madrid before entering politics in his homeland in April.

On Sunday, a day after turning 64, he voted for the first time in his life to a hero's welcome in a Sofia suburb.

Simeon was not running personally. Nor has he said how he sees his future role -- whether as a prime minister or as a patriarch behind the scenes.

Simeon has promised to continue the drive to bring Bulgaria into the European Union and NATO and to pursue reforms but also to raise living standards quickly and to introduce new social benefits.

Kostov has called Simeon's socially-oriented programme "wild populism."