On September 8, 1946, in the presence of Soviet troops, Bulgaria hold a referendum. According to official results out of 4,509,354 voters, 4,132,007 voters (91.63%) participated in the referendum, with 92.72% of those voting in favor of abolishing the monarchy and declaring the country a republic.
The results of the referendum are contested by monarchists, who believe that the Red Army, located on the territory of Bulgaria, had an influence on them. On September 15, 1946, the People's Republic of Bulgaria was proclaimed.
The minor King Simeon II, his mother Queen Joanna and his sister Princess Maria-Louise were forced to leave the country immediately (within a few days). They went to Egypt, and in 1951 - to Spain.
In September 1946, Bulgaria, which was among the countries that lost World War II, was practically still occupied by Soviet troops, and the referendum vote was far from our understanding of a free vote today. Behind the screen of the coalition government of the Fatherland Front, the new communist power does not touch with velvet gloves at all.
From December 1944 to April 1945, the so-called People's Court operated.
There they “judge” all people from the elite who cannot just “disappear without a trace”, as it happens to many other people in the country. With this cruel blow, the Regency, more than half of the 25th Ordinary People's Assembly, representatives of the higher state administration, the economic and intellectual elite were destroyed.
However, it is necessary to know that the abolition of monarchies in the countries defeated in the First and Second World Wars was a geopolitical process, largely orchestrated by the victorious countries.