With the lack of any real improvement in living standards, support for the Kostov government simply withered away. Only in the relatively prosperous SDS strongholds of Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna was there any remaining enthusiasm for his unexciting political platform of fiscal prudence. However, the BSP, still tainted by the economic incompetence of the Videnov years, was badly placed to profit from widespread disillusionment with the SDS - leaving a political vacuum ready to be exploited by a new and unexpected force.

Ever since 1990, the idea of a return to the monarchy had occasionally been floated by those disillusioned with Bulgaria's frequently unstable post-Communist political set-up. The Madrid-based Tsar Simeon II , who had been chased out of the country by the Communists at the age of nine, was in regular contact with Bulgarian politicians throughout the 1990s, but initially showed little real interest in coming back. He revisited Bulgaria for the first time in 1996, and made it clear that he considered the stage-managed referendum which had turfed him out fifty years earlier to have been illegal. However, he wisely refrained from outright political involvement at a time when most mainstream Bulgarian voters still saw the SDS as the force of the future. By the turn of the millennium, however, events were inexorably moving in his favour. Tired of investing their hopes in successive governments that failed to deliver, ordinary Bulgarians needed a figurehead who could restore some level of confidence in the country. They were joined by many educated, professional Bulgarians who traditionally voted for the SDS, but felt betrayed by its descent into corruption and place-seeking.

With political and financial backers lining up behind him, Simeon was induced to put himself forward as a candidate for the presidential elections, next scheduled for autumn 2001. However, he was barred from doing so by the Supreme Court, on the grounds that presidential candidates had to be resident in the country for at least five years. Undeterred, Simeon's backers formed a new political organization, the National Movement of Simeon the Second (Natsionalnoto Dvizhenie Simeon Vtori; or NDSV ), and prepared to fight the parliamentary elections of June 2001 with Simeon himself heading their list of candidates. Simeon adapted to this new role with an impressive display of noblesse oblige , proclaiming that Bulgaria was in a mess, and that he as a simple patriot would do his best to sort things out if that was what people wanted. This went down a storm with the electorate: having lived in exile for the last 55 years, Simeon was perceived to be untainted by the corruption endemic among Bulgaria's political elite, thereby offering the kind of moral rectitude that other national figures lacked. Simeon himself kept his cards close to his chest, studiously avoiding the question of whether he was using the parliamentary elections as a platform from which to regain his throne.

Simeon's programme differed little from the package of budgetary restraint and market reforms offered by other parties, but his promises to stamp out corruption struck a popular chord. In the event the NDSV won a landslide, securing 43 percent of the vote as against the SDS's 18 percent and the BSP's 17 percent. Commanding 120 places in the 240-seat Assembly, Simeon struck a deal with Ahmed Dogan's DPS (which won its customary seven percent share of the vote) to ensure an absolute majority. Reserving the post of prime minister for himself, Simeon assembled a cabinet which included figures from across the political spectrum, as well as young financial experts who had been lured away from highly paid banking jobs abroad by the possibility of forging high-profile political careers at home.

The next victim of this political earthquake was the sitting president Petâr Stoyanov. Despite being an immensely likeable man who had represented his country with great dignity over the last five years, Stoyanov was politically damaged by the scale of the SDS parliamentary defeat, and decided to stand in the presidential elections of November 2001 as an independent, depriving himself of an effective campaigning machine. The NDSV decided not to field a candidate in opposition to Stoyanov, but didn't fully support him either, in a deliberate attempt to undermine both Stoyanov and the presidency as an institution - a useful step in preparing the ground for any future return to the monarchy. After a remarkably low turnout, Stoyanov was pipped at the post by the BSP's Georgi Pârvanov , a competent party manager who is as yet unproven on the national stage.

With Stoyanov out of the way, Simeon - still known officially by his family name of Simeon of Saxe-Coburg Gotha (Simeon Sakskoburgotski in Bulgarian) even though many of his supporters refer to him simply as "The Tsar" - remains the only charismatic figure in Bulgarian politics. However, the question of how long he will wait before moving to regain his throne remains the subject of much conjecture. Most of Bulgaria's prime ministers from 1991 onwards have entered office on a wave of popularity only to see their support eroded once living standards fail to improve, and Simeon may yet share the same fate. The NDSV itself is a disparate movement united by personal loyalty to Simeon rather than any guiding ideology, and is packed with power-hungry careerists as well as people of genuine political ability. Most importantly, the NDSV lacks a solid class base, and like many of the political leaders before him, Simeon will need to cultivate the support of powerful business cliques and post-Communist clan networks in order to stay in power.