The overwhelming success of the political movement of ex-king Simeon II in Sunday's legislative elections leaves Bulgaria with a new leadership which can claim a strong popular mandate for action. What, however, that action will consist of is at this stage anyone's guess.
Latest results show the National Movement Simeon II with 43.5 per cent of the vote and a possible 120 or 121 of the 240 seats in parliament. The ex-king has announced his willingness to form a coalition with "all the political forces which will support it".
This is likely to include in the first instance the Turkish minority party, the MDL, and possibly elements of the outgoing conservative Union of Democratic Forces, which scored 18.2 per cent. The third formation in the country, the ex-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party, whose vote fell to 17.4 per cent, is likely to stay outside.
Simeon II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha became king of Bulgaria aged six in 1943 and reigned for only three years. The country had been a somewhat reluctant ally of Germany in the war. Simeon's father, King Boris, died mysteriously shortly after returning from a visit to Hitler in Berlin.
The post-war seizure of power by the communists was followed by a purge which claimed many thousands of lives, but the boy king Simeon escaped - after a doubtfully democratic referendum abolished the monarchy - with expulsion from the country.
He has since lived quietly in Spain until his return this spring. Whether Simeon now hopes, in the short or long term, to see a restoration of the Bulgarian monarchy is an open question. Asked about his intentions during the campaign he was vague and contradictory on this subject, as on many others.
A Gallup survey conducted on Sunday to coincide with the elections, however, indicates a strong adherence among Bulgarians to the republican model, with only 18 per cent of those polled in favour of the return of the monarchy. The mass circulation Trud newspaper was, nevertheless, yesterday hedging its bets with its front-page headline: "Citizens and subjects, good morning."
What exactly Bulgarians can expect from their new government is unclear, but it may well turn out not to be so different from the UDF recipes they have just overwhelmingly rejected. Simeon promised during the campaign to protect the people from the effects of economic liberalisation, but one of his advisers has equally spoken of the need to balance "the interests of the business sector and those of the population".
While there is a certain level of prosperity, and even joie de vivre, in evidence in Sofia, in the second city, Plovdiv, and in the tourist areas of the Black Sea coast, much of Bulgaria is still mired in poverty and backwardness and the economy has not yet recovered from the disappearance of its trading links with the old Soviet bloc.
The outgoing UDF administration was with undoubted justification accused of corruption, but it did have some economic success. On Sunday evening, exking Simeon spoke of Bulgaria now embarking on "the path to spiritual growth".
The young technocrats in his entourage from London's "Bulgarian City Club" may well have another path in mind. Whichever path is chosen, in the short term Bulgaria's poor may find that spiritual growth, like macro-economic stability, is not something you can eat.