It feels so good to say the words: "outgoing prime minister Sergei Stanishev". Almost as good as the words "outgoing economy minister Petar Dimitrov". The list goes on.

While Stanishev is no George Walker Bush, neither is Boiko Borissov quite Barack Obama, from whom the Sofia mayor borrowed the idea for his main campaign motto – Let’s prove that Bulgaria can. Still the sentiment that elevated the two men to power is the same – a depressing fatigue with the status quo and an yearning for change.

Among the many differences between Borissov and Obama is the fact that in Bulgaria’s case, there was a very concerted effort to stack the odds in favour of the status quo, an attempt  by those in government to win by default, or at least ensure a political logjam that would maintain their importance.

The irony is that Borissov owes his decisive victory precisely to those attempts to stack the odds against him. Where Obama had to build the most impressive grassroots political organisation in history, all Borissov had to do was sit back and do sweet Fanny Adams.

For all his efforts to put on a brave face during the election night news conference, Stanishev cut a pretty desperate figure, left to float adrift by senior party figures. Their defection of a dead man walking, politically-speaking, was understandable.

The only one that joined him on the podium, Roumen Ovcharov, is just as likely right now to stab Stanishev in the back as he is to support him when the question is inevitably raised as to who is to blame.

I expected to feel down and mildly depressed this week and I am glad that I do not, but neither am I euphoric about the results of the election. Leaving aside the lingering doubts about Borissov’s ability to walk the walk, there is the inevitable dread that the Socialists will rise again.

Adding some fresh faces but changing little of its modus operandi after the unmitigated debacle that was the Zhan Videnov cabinet, it took the Socialists only eight years to rise back to prominence.

For all the pundit talk that the party will have to do some heavy soul-searching and transform itself into a "modern left party", the empirical data in Bulgaria and the rest of South Eastern Europe lends little evidence of the likelihood of such an outcome.

The only chance of that is for Borissov to prove his doubters wrong and show that he can build a lasting legacy – in a positive way. And that, somehow, is not the most cheerful thought.