The  Prime Minister King

Simeon II and his family waiting to cast their votes at the Bulgarian Elections in June 2001
(for more pictures of this event visit Gallery 1, Gallery 2 and Gallery 3)

The astonishing results of Bulgaria's parliamentary elections sent shock waves around the world  in June 2001 as King Simeon II of Bulgaria, 55 year after going into exile, entered the history books as the first European  monarch to lead a political part to victory in a democratic election. Despite surveys showing that 80  per cent of the electorate is opposed to the restoration of the monarchy, Simeon's fledgling National Movement convinced voters of its fitness to rule with its message of moral integrity and promise to fight corruption and improve standards of living.

Having won 120 of the 240 parliamentary seats, Simeon will have to form a coalition with a least one of the three other opposition parties. For the moment he has remained tight-lipped about whether he himself would head the government as Prime Minister - doing so would involve swearing an oath to serve the Republic - and he has insisted that a return to monarchy is not one of the country's priorities. The future of the Bulgarian royal house now depends on Simeon's next move and his capacity to deliver on his ambitious promises. But observers feel that if anyone can reunite Balkan kings with their kingdom it is Simeon.

Deposed at the age of nine Simeon has always been philosophical about the loss of his throne. "Exile," he once said, is the best schooling for a King provided he can return!"  Now, from London to Madrid and Johannesburg, fellow kings and crown princes in exile will be eager to have a glance at his schoolwork as Simeon ponders the mind-boggling protocol of being King and Prime Minister at the same time.
 

Simeon, now 64, certainly made the most of his exile, becoming fluent in six languages and picking up a smattering of a few more. He also proved adept at swapping the business of running a kingdom for successfully running a business.   But like most Eastern European royals he never abandoned hope of one day regaining his throne, hope that became a tantalizing possibility as communist regime were toppled throughout the region after the Berlin Wall cam tumbling down in 1989.

"For decades,  I have suffered, as you, our unhappy fate," said Simeon in a statement to the nation before the elections, referring to over four decades of communist dictatorship.  "But I have never lost my belief in a free strong Bulgaria."

Simeon was born into the reigning Saxe-Coburg dynasty in Sofia in 1937, the eldest son of king Boris III. "We never saw much of him - being King he was very busy,"  Simeon said of his father in an interview with the Spanish magazine H0LA! "But he was very affectionate towards us. I remember how he used to take us on excursions to the countryside. He taught me to love the country and mountains. He loved nature." Upon King Boris's sudden death  in 1943, Simeon acceded to the one at the age of six. "Seeing my father dead was a tremendous shock, one which I will never forget," he remembered. "From that moment on I can clearly remember all the horrors which were to happen."

Bulgaria had disastrously allied itself to Nazi Germany, and when a communist inspired coup seized power with support of the Soviet Red Army 1944, the fate of the monarchy was sealed. Simeon's uncle and Regent, Prince Kyril, and hundreds of others were executed. "When the war ended in 1945, my mother, my sister and I stayed one more year in Bulgaria, closely watched by the communists,"  recalled Simeon. In 1946 the monarchy was abolished, and king Simeon, while never abdicating, left Bulgaria with his family with a very small retinue. After traveling via Istanbul, the royal exiles sailed to Egypt where the young Simeon attended a British school. Finally in 1951, the Spanish government granted the Bulgarian royal family asylum, allowing them settle in Madrid.
 

It was there that Simeon was to meet his future wife Margarita, a spirited young woman who had lost both her parents in the Spanish Civil War. However, religious differences had to be overcome before the couple could wed. Simeon was an orthodox Christian while Margarita was from a strict Catholic background. Undaunted, and perhaps already showing political astuteness, Simeon, after lengthy negotiations which included three dinners with Pope John XXIII,  came up with a compromise-the couple were wed three times, in two religious ceremonies and also a civil one, thereby placating both churches and the state. "Each church thought that their own ceremony would be enough to marry us- there was a kind of competition between them," says Simeon. "My own mother's family - her brother was King Umberto of Italy - and my other Catholic relatives stayed away from the Orthodox wedding, believing Margarita would be excommunicated. " We had kept our Catholic wedding, celebrated the day before, a secret. The couple have raised five children - four boys and a girl - and the family are seen frequently at royal gatherings throughout Europe.

The Princes each found a Spanish bride - young women renowned for their restrained elegance-while Kalina, Simeon's only daughter, is dating a Spanish explorer.  Over the years, Simeon has on many occasions expressed his wish to return to Bulgaria and to show his children his homeland. "I can see myself going back to Bulgaria one day as a tourist, " he said. But that was 1987.
 

In 1989 Bulgaria was caught up in the wave of democratization that was sweeping through Eastern Europe. The Bulgarian Communist Party, unlike others, gave up its monopoly of power almost without a fight, paving the way for the country's first non-communist government since the war. In 1996, King Simeon was able to fulfill his dream of returning to Sofia, where he was overwhelmed by the rapturous welcome he received.  "There is only one Bulgaria," he said at the time, "and all of us should be working for its good without dividing it according to our political views. I appeal to our political establishment to seek national unity so that the threat of deepening crisis can be averted."

Sensing that his appeal had fallen on deaf ears, he returned permanently last April to enter politics. His arrival was widely acclaimed by Bulgarians frustrated by corruption and the lack of political and economic progress more than ten years after the full of the old regime. Captivated by the King's 800-day plan to transform the blighted economy, they swept his  movement into power.

Whatever happens next, the momentous events of last week, which one observer called  "an earthquake of ten on the Richter scale," are good news for other dispossessed royals and will have left a couple of exiled crowned heads nodding in approval.