By JOE PARKINSON

The Wall Street Journal

Bulgaria's prime minister-elect, Boiko Borisov, said he would seek a World Bank economist as his finance minister, after a sweeping election victory.

Mr. Borisov's center-right party won 39.7% of the vote, official results showed Monday, with 99.88% of ballots counted. That was more than twice as many as the incumbent Socialists, allowing Mr. Borisov to form a coalition with the small, market-oriented Blue Coalition.

"Simeon Djankov will be my finance minister," Mr. Borisov said, as he toured a 4 million extension to the metro system here. Mr. Borisov is the mayor of Sofia, the capital city.

Mr. Djankov, chief economist for finance and the private sector at the World Bank, created its Doing Business survey, which ranks the business friendliness of economies around the world. His appointment would help to reassure foreign investors worried about a relatively untested politician taking over.

Mr. Djankov recently indicated he would face a tough choice if offered a cabinet post in Sofia. His wife, Caroline Freund, also a World Bank economist, is considering an advisory role with the Obama administration's economic team. Mr. Djankov couldn't be reached to comment on Monday. A spokesman for the World Bank declined to comment.

Mr. Borisov said he expected his party's margin of victory to make governing easier. "A strong government will help us to make tough decisions ... but we also want to build more highways, trains and infrastructure," Mr. Borisov said.

A former national karate team coach and private-security firm executive, Mr. Borisov at the same time reiterated his promise to slash public spending.

He declined to discuss the specifics of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which he pledged would begin "immediately" once he took office.

Mr. Borisov's economic program seeks to shore up the budget , which is sliding toward a deficit this year as unemployment rises, and hasten Bulgaria's entry into the exchange-rate mechanism that serves as prelude to adopting the euro.

Bulgaria, the European Union's poorest member, relied on foreign funding for a quarter of its gross domestic product last year. The Balkan nation's GDP declined 3.5% on the year through March, after expanding by 7% last year.

Many of Bulgaria's neighbors, including Romania, have turned to the IMF. Bulgaria's currency board, which ties its currency, the lev, to the euro, requires a tight fiscal policy.

"Appointing Djankov as finance minister will be viewed as another positive step by the markets, but the key is to actually see what happens next," said Dmitry Gourov, a Vienna-based economist with Unicredit.

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