Anger on the streets of Sofia

A protestor wearing the word "Mafia" pinned to his chest is surrounded by others with placards bearing the names of major Bulgarian political parties.

Bulgaria, a Black Sea nation sandwiched between Greece and Romania, has been transformed in the past 23 years from a financially bankrupt one-party state into an open, stable market economy anchored in the European Union and NATO.

But six years after joining the EU, it remains the poorest and one of the most graft-prone countries in the 28-member club - an issue that has fuelled protests.

Every evening now for seven weeks, demonstrators have been marching through Sofia to show their anger with the status quo.

They have pledged to continue their daily rallies until Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski's two-party coalition resigns and they shrug off objections that elections now would probably lead to a new government made up of the same discredited parties.

Viktor Stoyanov, a 35-year-old composer pictured shouting slogans through a loudhailer, is among those who have joined the demonstrations.

"This is a middle class revolution," he said.

"We Bulgarians have always looked for saviors to come from outside and solve our problems. That has to stop, we have to sort ourselves out."

Fifty-year-old business executive Sasha Bezuhanova is another protestor committed to change in Bulgaria.

A former senior employee at the technology giant Hewlett-Packard, she has now quit her position to launch an online forum MoveBG, to generate ideas and propose policies on how to modernise the Balkan country. She hints that she may set up a pro-reform political party in the future.

"We are now putting at risk the European, democratic path of Bulgaria. People who care about the country must stand up and say enough is enough," she said.