The former King Simeon II, forced into exile in 1944 at the age of 6, is now poised to be a former prime minister unless he can boost voter turnout and mobilise support for his centre-right party.

The NDSW lags almost 15 per cent behind the Socialist grouping, which shelters many older communists and which is offering a more Eurosceptical line than the former tsar, as he is known to his countrymen.

“It’s the Socialists or the European Union, that is the real choice,” say Mr Saxe-Coburg’s supporters, who deride the Socialists’ extraordinary election promises to bring down prices for bread, milk and medicines.

Four years of cost-cutting budgets and liberal economics have brought Bulgaria stable growth of about 5 per cent and record levels of foreign investment, and have brought down unemployment from 17 per cent to 12 per cent. But voters are still disappointed with the Prime Minister, who was hailed almost as a messiah when he returned to his homeland in 1996.

When he became Prime Minister in 2001 he and his team of young economists, who were trained in the City of London, promised to improve living standards radically within 800 days. Instead, Bulgarians say that prices are racing towards Western European levels, while the average monthly salary hovers around £80. To bring his supporters to the ballot box, Mr Saxe-Coburg has come up with a novel idea. Every voter will be able to take part immediately in a nationwide tombola, punching into his or her mobile telephone a number handed out at the polling station. Almost 2 million leva (£663,000) has been set aside for prizes.

If Bulgaria swings to the Socialists today, as expected, accession to the European Union may become more difficult. The party’s grandees have yet to come out strongly in favour of the kind of social or economic reforms needed to make EU membership a realistic goal.

Rumen Ovcharov, of the executive committee, said that the party was no longer merely a version of the old, disgraced Community Party. “We have completely changed our positions on the EU and Nato,” he said.

EU membership remains popular, even after the breakdown of the Brussels summit, and a Socialist-run government would certainly pay lip service to membership. But the party’s populist policies and reluctance to embark on far-reaching reform could well fuel the arguments of those in the EU who do not want fast entry for Sofia.

Brussels will be watching the progress of a new nationalist party, Ataka, which, under its leader, Volen Sidorov, is stirring up sentiment against ethnic Turks and Roma, is urging Bulgaria to leave Nato and wants to renegotiate EU entry. Opinion polls suggest that it will capture the 4 per cent needed to gain parliamentary seats.

For rather different reasons, eyes will also be on the new Euroma party, which is fielding 100 candidates. The leaders of the party include Yuliana Kancheva, a model who has also taken part in pornographic films. The platform of the party is pro-gypsy and is therefore unlikely to attract a mass following in Bulgaria.

The party is masterminded by Azis, a 27-year-old transvestite whose real name is Vassil Boyarnov. The singer, who is of Romany origin, has attracted concert audiences of up to 50,000 and his songs include We May Not Be Flawless, But We’re Legitimate and Don’t You Think I Have Suffered Enough?

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• China dissident's cry for democracy 30 years on
• A charity or a front for the Mumbai killers?
• Putin shows he's still the man in charge