THE anti-communist alliance which won Saturday's elections in Bulgaria will have to impose speedy and unpopular reforms to drag the country out of stagnation and economic misery.
"Difficult reform awaits us. We" will have to take unpopular measures," President Petar Stoyanov acknowledged following a landslide victory for the United Democratic Forces (UDF) alliance, whose leader, Mr Ivan Kostov, will be the next prime minister.
The alliance won just over 52 per cent of the vote, according to results published yesterday with 96 per cent of the vote counted. The Socialist Party, former communists in power since 1994, came a distant second with 22 per cent. Three small parties, the National Salvation Union Euroleft, and the Bulgarian Business Bloc, also won seals.
The UDF alliance, with 136 seals in the 240-seat chamber, will enjoy an absolute majority, giving it a free hand to impose promised austerity measures.
Mr Kostov (47), a former finance minister, has already indicated that a key priority will be privatisation of big state enterprises and closure of unprofitable firms.
Such a move is bound to cause layoffs, in a country where unemployment already stands at 12 per cent and looks set to reach between 24 and 26 per cent in 1997, according to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' Economics Institute.