Stoyan Mavrodiev from Bulgaria's ruling party GERB will head the country's Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) for six years starting Friday.

Mavrodiev, who is currently the Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Energy and Tourism and member of the Budget and Finance Committee, was elected with 119 votes in favor and 24 votes against. He replaces Petar Chobanov who has been in charge of the FSC for a year.

Mavrodiev's nomination was supported by the Co-Chair of the center-right “Blue Coalition”, Ivan Kostov, who pointed out that the former staff of the Commission has allowed a decline in the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, which is currently in a very bad shape.

“This was the reason for the change. Moreover, the former staff did not protect the interests of the minority shareholders at the beginning of the economic crisis,” Kostov said.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party did not find convincing the arguments for the change and refused to support Mavrodiev. The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) also voted against, in their words, not because of the nominee's personal qualities, but due to the ruling party's policy to perform replacements in all regulation spheres.

Currently, Bulgaria’s banking and crediting sector is supervised by the Bulgarian National Bank, whereas the insurance firms, retirement funds, and other non-banking financial companies are monitored by the Financial Supervision Commission. The Commission is independent and is accountable to the Parliament.

In April, the Bulgarian government decided to shrink the size of the Commission from 7 to 5 members. The suggestion was upheld by the Economy Committee of the Bulgarian Parliament, which approved draft amendments of the Financial Supervision Commission Act.

Members of the ruling party GERB, including the Chair of the Parliamentary Finance Committee Menda Stoyanova, have put forth the idea of setting up a unified body for financial supervision in Bulgaria by the end of 2010, merging banking and non-banking supervision. However, no specific plans have been made public yet.