Bulgaria Rejects Former King’s Offer to Come Back From Exile
The Communist government today rejected an offer by Bulgaria’s former king to return from exile and help rebuild the country, suggesting the monarch should mind his own business.
“There is no room for the revival of monarchist ideas in Bulgaria’s public life,” the government said in a statement carried by the Communist Party newspaper Rabotnichesko Delo.
The statement rejected former King Simeon II’s offer to use his international business and political connections to help revitalize Bulgaria’s economy.
It said the proposals are “strange and absolutely unacceptable, as are the attempts to advise the Bulgarian people about the way they should manage their affairs.”
Simeon II, who as a child briefly served as Bulgaria’s last monarch before being exiled in 1946, made the proposals in an interview broadcast Sunday night on state television.
The unprecedented television appearance from his home in Madrid gave many Bulgarians their first glimpse of the 53-year-old former king, who was forced to leave the country at age 9 when the Communists seized power.
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