Simeon Saxe-Coburg, founder and leader of the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) said he was resigning from the post, accepting responsibility for the party having won no seats in Parliament at the July 5 2009 elections.

The NMSP won 127 340 votes or three per cent, with the election threshold being four per cent.

The NMSP was one of the three ruling parties together with the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Right and Freedoms.

At a July 6 2009 news conference former Bulgarian monarch Saxe-Coburg, who was the country's prime minister in 2001-2005, said that there was no drama in his decision, which was taken in the "spirit of European democracy".

He declined to say when the party would call a special congress to elect a new leader. Saxe-Coburg said he would not nominate a successor because "this would be undemocratic".

He failed to give a clear answer when asked whether he would stand for new term as the party leader or whether he would accept the post of honorary leader of the party.

"There are many ways in which one could be useful to his country" he said, adding that he would stay in Bulgaria and not go back to Madrid where he lived until coming back to Bulgaria in 2001.

He spent decades in exile after a communist-organised referendum in 1947 abolished Bulgaria's monarchy. "After spending more than 50 years in exile, the thought of living somewhere else does not cross my mind, especially since I am feeling better and better living in my fatherland"

He said that no one was irreplaceable and there were enough people with qualities who could do a good job as party leader.

Saxe-Coburg wished good luck to Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov's party GERB which won 39.8 per cent of the vote.

"I congratulate GERB and General Borissov on their win" he said, referring to Borissov's rank which he got while serving as Interior Ministry chief secretary during the Saxe-Coburg administration.

"The NMSP result is not a favourable one, but we need to take it in a positive and balanced way," Saxe-Coburg said.