Ex interior minister Nikos Voutsis elected new Greek Parl’t speaker

Greece’s new Parliament, elected two weeks ago, has chosen SYRIZA deputy Nikos Voutsis as its speaker.

Voutsis got 181 votes from 297 voting lawmakers on Sunday.

The 64-year-old Voutsis succeeds 38-year-old Zoe Constantopoulou, who left SYRIZA in August after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accepted the third bailout deal for heavily-indebted Greece. She ran with the SYRIZA dissidents of Popular Unity, which failed to enter Parliament.

Awaiting the new Parliament is an intense legislative activity to pass reforms required by the 86-billion-euro third bailout.

Voutsis, Interior minister in the first Tsipras government from January to August 2015, is expected to adhere closer to the speaker’s traditional role, in contrast to Constantopoulou, who commented, often disapprovingly, on almost every lawmaker’s contribution and whose long speeches resembled political manifestos.

[AP]