Bulgarian parliament votes out own speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - Bulgaria’s parliament voted out its own speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov on Thursday, local media reported.

The proposal to dismiss Zhelyazkov by Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) and Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which accused him of “systematically” failing to discharge his duties, was supported by 129 lawmakers from CC-DB, BSP as well as Vazrazhdane, and There Is Such a People parties, state-run BTA news agency reported.

Some 103 lawmakers from the GERB-UDF coalition and the Movement for Rights and Freedom voted against the proposal, it said.

“According to the reasoning for the proposal, Zhelyazkov breached the procedure for the dismissal of head of the National Health Insurance Fund, Stanimir Mihailov” and “systematically abused” at least two articles regulating the working procedure of the parliament, the news agency said.