Somehow, it always happens that in parallel to the election night ritual at the Election Centre, there is a wedding next door. The night of July 5 2009 is no exception, and somehow the celebratory music from the wedding matches the mood at the centre.

Awaiting news conferences, journalists are idling around, smoking and chatting - popular topics are the fact that the Bulgarian Socialist Party, currently the majority partner in government, won not even one seat in the majoritarian vote.

Another popular theme, especially among those who have been on the campaign trail behind politicians through the June elections for the European Parliament and this month's national parliamentary elections, is that the results are decisive enough - and so the spectre of early elections later in 2009 has evaporated.

(Or perhaps not. If Boiko Borissov becomes Prime Minister, there will be a job vacancy - mayor of Sofia.)

The mood is upbeat, even cheerful, as people gather in the warm night on the upper balcony outside the Election Centre. Even the BSP seems in a good mood.

Police, in force to provide security as Bulgaria's political bigwigs arrive for news conferences, also seemed in jovial mood and were gathered in groups - also smoking, in an unwitting reference to the "mass smoking" protests by police in the past year.

For the rest, popular items of focus were various television sets, as people in the Election Centre watched people in the Election Centre being interviewed.

* From the Black Sea city of Bourgas, bTV reported that there were people wearing blue t-shirts reading "Voting goes on until 19:00" - a reference to the blue colour of the Blue Coalition, which on the voting ballot, had number 19.