SOFIA'S protesters stayed away from the streets of a city enveloped in thick, freezing fog and stayed at home to watch the televised inauguration of their new president, Mr Petar Stoyanov.
Wasting little time to show his sympathies Mr Stoyanov supported, in his inauguration address, the opposition United Democratic Forces' call for immediate parliamentary elections.
Under Bulgaria's constitution the presidency plays a largely ceremonial role but Mr Stoyanov's victory in the December election in which he gained more than 60 per cent of the vote has given him a moral authority greater than that of the ruling Socialist (excommunist) party.
The Socialists won their parliamentary majority in 1994 but economic crises and corruption have seen their popularity dwindle to the extent that in the most recent opinion poll they were supported by only eight per cent of the population.
The government has offered elections in December with an interim coalition running the country in the meantime. The opposition is holding out for immediate elections.
Mr Stoyanov immediately finds himself in a complicated situation.
While he has backed the opposition demands, he is bound by the country's constitution to ask the majority party in parliament to form a new government.
At present the Socialists have an overall majority on paper but the situation has been complicated further by a series of defections by reformist members of the party and by the formation of a marxist party called New Left which has called for market reforms.
So by the time Mr Stoyanov gets around to his duties towards the parliament, probably on Wednesday when he receives the keys to the presidential palace, the Socialists may no longer have a parliamentary majority.
In the lobby of parliament after Mr Stoyanev's inauguration the party's old guard was adamant that it would hold out until December in the hope of an improvement in living standards while more liberal members readily conceded immediate elections.
The caretaker prime minister, Mr Zhan Videnov, who admitted con Friday that the country was bankrupt, refused to comment and left the parliament in a hurry.
Mr Stoyanev, a lawyer from Ploviv, the country's second city, was sworn in by the parliament's chairman, Mr Blagovest Sendov, in the presence of the outgoing President, Mr Zhelyu Zhelev, Mr Videnov and Patriarch Maxim who heads one of the two churches which claim to be the heirs of Bulgarian orthodoxy.
In his speech Mr Stoyanov said he wanted to see a Bulgaria allied to the EU and NATO, signalling a move away from Russia which has been Bulgaria's patron and protector since Tsarist days.
. A dense fog closed down Sofia airport yesterday, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded as incoming planes were diverted, an airport official said. "The airport has been closed for two days," said the official. The forecast was for more humid weather likely to cause fog in the next few days.
