Empty pledge sees royal premier in danger of defeat

Bulgaria : The failure of a former Bulgarian king to deal with poverty, crime and corruption could see him lose power, writes…

Bulgaria: The failure of a former Bulgarian king to deal with poverty, crime and corruption could see him lose power, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Sofia.

Bulgarians look set to oust Europe's only royal premier tomorrow in a general election surrounded by fears that the EU is going cold on its bid for membership in 2007.

The Balkan nation seems to have lost faith in prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg (68) - the former king who returned home in 2001 - and will instead trust the heirs of the communists to combat Bulgaria's chronic poverty, crime and corruption.

Despite leading his country into Nato last year, reducing unemployment and overseeing economic growth in each of the four years since he took power, Mr Saxe-Coburg failed to keep his best-known promise: prosperity for all Bulgarians in 800 days.

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That bold pledge caught the mood of his triumphant homecoming and victory in 2001, but it has a hollow ring as Bulgaria returns to the ballot box.

Except for Turkey, it is still the poorest EU member or accession state, with the average wage just €150 a month.

That stubborn poverty, compounded by his glaring failure to crush corruption and crime, has allowed the Socialists to undermine the somewhat aloof Mr Saxe-Coburg as an aristocrat with an inability to understand the real needs of the masses.

"He does not talk a lot, and is above the usual political intrigue," says Miroslava Yanova, the head of Bulgaria's MBMD polling institute.

"Instead he prefers discretion and diplomacy, and leaves the talking up to the experts. The public has started seeing this as a sign of weakness."

Mr Saxe-Coburg has struggled to respond to the direct, populist campaigning of his rivals, spearheaded by Socialist leader Sergey Stanishev (39).

While Mr Stanishev arrived at a recent rally on a motorbike and is the boyfriend of a television reporter, the former king, who speaks five foreign languages but slightly stuffy Bulgarian, has taken to bemoaning his lack of rapport with the nation.

"I wonder if all these personal insults are necessary. What have I done to people?" he said recently in a rare interview.

"We have reduced unemployment, the economy is working and in 2004 we received direct foreign investment of four billion leva (€4 billion) - but I have not managed to convince people of Bulgaria's enormous potential."

With time running out to halt the Socialists' momentum, Mr Saxe-Coburg's party looks doomed, with polls showing it trailing its main rival by some 15 per cent.

Born Simeon II and crowned king at the age of six, he was deposed by the communists two years later, and spent five decades in exile in Spain before coming home after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

But while avoiding the rough-and-tumble of Balkan politics, Mr Saxe-Coburg has appeared powerless to stop a steady decline in his approval rating, which has fallen from above 70 per cent in his heyday to about 37 per cent now.

"In 2001 the king was a myth, but that has changed. So now the vote is no longer for him as a personality, but for his centre-right party," says analyst Andrei Raichev.

"And Bulgarians are ready to swing to the left because only 20 to 30 per cent of the population gained from the country's transition to a market economy."

That estimate corresponds to a 2003 survey that suggested 70 per cent of Bulgarians felt they were better off under communism - perhaps not a surprising view given that gross domestic product only staggered back to its 1989 level last year.

And in Mr Stanishev - the son of a Soviet-era official - the Socialists have a leader who appeals to both the nostalgia for communist-bloc certainties felt by many older and rural voters, and younger Bulgarians' desire for a fresh more dynamic leader.

He has promised to raise salaries by 20 per cent next year, create 240,000 jobs by 2009, and forge "a European standard of living" for Bulgaria's eight million people.

In a bid to sway the nation's poor, the Socialists have also pledged to cut tax on bread, milk and medicines, and give free childcare, school meals and text books to underprivileged communities, many of which are predominantly home to Roma families.

Their battle for better housing, jobs, healthcare and education has been taken up by Vassil Boyanov, an openly gay pop singer, whose Euroroma party could clinch a seat or two in parliament if Bulgaria's 400,000 or so Gypsies vote heavily tomorrow.

They go into the poll under pressure from a fast-growing far-right party called Attack, whose slogan is "Bulgaria for the Bulgarians".

This party has support from those who fear the rapid growth of the Roma community and deplore the willingness of the Socialists to form a new coalition government with the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MDL), which draws most of its support from Bulgaria's 800,000 Muslims.

The rising popularity of Attack - some polls predict it could take 7 per cent of votes - undermines Bulgaria's effort to portray itself as a modern, tolerant country which will be ready to join the EU in less than 18 months.

With EU expansion under the spotlight, Mr Saxe-Coburg's party is telling Bulgarians it would be folly to change ship now with Brussels almost in sight.

The Socialists say that after victory tomorrow they would make parliament work through its planned summer holiday to ensure the implementation of EU reforms and avert the threat of a one-year delay to accession.

"The government relied more on speed than on the quality of negotiations, and its work was not sufficient," Mr Stanishev said yesterday.