SOON after the Central Electoral Commission announced the close of polling stations and the official end of Election Day late in the evening on June 25, the parties and coalitions who passed the four per cent threshold, gave their official news conferences.
They are placed below, in descending order of the projected percentage of votes they each received.

Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)-led Coalition for Bulgaria:

BSP leader Sergei Stanishev confirmed his bid to be Prime Minister, even though the coalition did not get the expected number of votes and got less than the necessary majority for forming a government without forming coalitions with other parties.
According to Stanishev, it was still natural that the formation which got most votes should have the leading position in forming a government.
He said that the Coalition for Bulgaria would seek co-operation with other democratic formations that entered Parliament, but ruled out any negotiations with the fourth largest group in Parliament, Coalition Ataka.
According to Stanishev, Ataka's ideas promoted intolerance, extreme nationalism, hatred, the severance of Bulgaria's relations with international institutions and a reconsideration of its European orientation. Therefore, they were absolutely unacceptable to the BSP and Coalition for Bulgaria.
Stanishev said that the number one priority of the new government would be to complete reforms necessary for Bulgaria to join the EU on time in 2007.

National Movement Simeon II (NMSII):

NMSII leader, Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, thanked all those who had voted for his party's candidates.
Saxe-Coburg said that the NMSII had received the largest number of votes of all parties running in the elections on their own.
Saxe-Coburg refused to say what the NMSII plans were for coalition talks.
"After the announcement of official results, consultations will be held, and they are going to be complicated," he said.
He said that in spite of the fact that the NMSII had lost its majority, he would not leave the country.
"It does not seem to me logical to think about leaving Bulgaria again," said Saxe-Coburg, who spent decades in exile during communist rule.

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF):

MRF leader Ahmed Dogan said that the most important thing for Bulgaria was to have a stable Government, which was impossible without the participation of the Coalition for Bulgaria.
"At this stage, the centre-right has no resources to form a coalition and, subsequently, a government," Dogan said. "A possible centre-plus-left coalition stands better chances to command a majority and form a Government but it is too early to forecast."
"Obviously, the two players are not enough to form a Government and a third one is needed," Dogan said. He said he had in mind the BSP and the MRF, neither of which would command a parliamentary majority.
 "The liberal players missed a very big chance," he said. "The NMSII, the MRF and Novoto Vreme made a fundamental mistake and missed their chance to win a parliamentary majority together."
Dogan declined to comment on the election results achieved by the radical coalition Ataka but said that  the responsibility for phenomena such as Ataka rested with the country’s political elite.

Coalition Ataka

The news conference by radical Coalition Ataka, who made a surprise showing in the election, was somewhat surprising as well. 
Its leader, former journalist Volen Siderov, refused to give specific replies to reporters' questions, instead offering acerbic remarks and opaque statements.
The news conference came to an abrupt end after a journalist from Bulgarian National Radio, annoyed with Siderov's behaviour, asked him when was the last time he went to see a psychiatrist.
At that point Siderov and his cohorts stood up and walked out of the hall.
Before this, Siderov, whose coalition got 21 seats in Parliament, said that it was unfair to call the 400 000 people who voted for his coalition "fascists" and "nazis". (The official tally of Ataka's votes came to 296 848).
"Ataka has won Bulgarians' confidence with its patriotic positions," he said.
At the news conference, he read some of Ataka's manifesto, emphasising that the coalition was patriotic and not fascist.
"The Bulgarian political mafia has failed in these elections," he said. "The BSP have also demonstrated their incompetence, and Sergei Stanishev must resign over this disastrous performance, while the right-wing parties should give up politics altogether."
His coalition declared itself in favour of an immediate withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from Iraq, to disallow deployment of US military bases in Bulgaria, a revision of the closure of Kozlodui nuclear power plant units (agreed to under EU pressure), a review of privatisation sales and a crackdown on organised crime.
Siderov's party also argues that Turks and Roma should not be allowed into the government and Bulgaria should be a "single-nation, unitary state." Ataka's principal campaign slogan was "Let's Give Bulgaria Back to the Bulgarians."

Centre-right parties:

Despite their bad showing in the elections, the three right-wing parties who entered Parliament did not concede defeat.
At a news conference in the early hours of June 26, Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) Nadezhda Mihailova, who also heads the United Democratic Forces (UtDF) coalition, said that it had retained its leading position among right-wing parties.
The UtDF got 20 seats in the election, a significant loss compared to the 2001 elections when it garnered 51 as the second largest group in Parliament. 
The other two right-wing parties who were previously part of the UtDF coalition in 2001, Ivan Kostov's Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) and the Bulgarian People's Union (BPU) got 17 and 13 seats respectively.
"The appearance of rather radical political forces puts Bulgaria's European future at stake," Mihailova said, referring to the Ataka Coalition.
In spite of the UtDF's bad performance, Mihailova said that resignations at the top of her coalition are "not in the order of the day."
"An option should be sought to form a right-of-centre government - the only one that would guarantee Bulgaria's road to Europe," she said.
"No coalitions ought to be formed, the BSP should be stopped from forming a Government," DSB leader Kostov said.
"The DSB would not support a BSP government, nor a Government headed by Simeon Saxe-Coburg," he said.
He did not rule out coming to terms with the rest of the rightist parties in Parliament if both the BSP and the NMSII fail to form a Government.
According to Kostov, his party had achieved its objective and would be the foremost right party in the next Parliament. DSB deputy leader Ekaterina Mihailova said that, as a single party and not a coalition, the DSB would have the most seats among all right-wing parties that will be represented in the 40th National Assembly because the rest will have to share their seats with coalition partners.
The leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union-People Anastasia Moser said the BPU was still waiting for an answer to an offer of co-operation it sent some time ago to the UtDF. 
According to Stefan Sofianski, having a right-of-centre Government would require the unification of the right, seeking a centrist coalition partner and the formation of a Government.
Sofianski said he was not worried by Ataka's success in the elections. "Nothing special has happened, just a couple of dozen people holding bizarre views have made it to Parliament," he said. "They will lend some emotion to the proceedings, but Ataka will cease to be a problem within months."
He added, "What matters is that all other political forces refuse to coalesce with Ataka."