"Zachariah Koulias"

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Zacharias Koulias (Rizokarpaso, 7 December 1950) is a Greek Cypriot politician. Since 1999 he has been a Member of Parliament in the Famagusta Electoral District elected with the Democratic Party.

Biographical data
Zacharias Koulias was born in Rizocarpaso on 7 December 1950. He speaks, beyond Greek, English. He studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He works as a lawyer.

He is married to Andriani Panagia and has 1 son and 1 daughter.

Path Policy
Zacharias Koulias became a member of the Central Committee of DIKOs and a member of the Executive Office of DIKOs in 1985, posts he had until 2011. Since 2016 he has been in these positions again. In addition, he was a member of the board of directors of the Cyprus Port Authority in 1994-1999.

He participated in the 1996 parliamentary election in the Famagusta Electoral District with DICOS but was not elected. However, in 1999, after the resignation of the MP of the Famagusta Electoral District of DICOS, Alexis Galanos, a Member of Parliament took office on 7 October 1999 Zacharias Koulias, as the first runner-up, for the VII Parliamentary Period. He was re-elected in the 2001 parliamentary elections for the VIII Parliamentary Period, the 2006 parliamentary elections for the IX Parliamentary Period, the 2011 parliamentary elections for the 1st Parliamentary Period and the 2016 parliamentary elections for the XI Parliamentary Period.

Immediately after the 2011 parliamentary election, he was removed from the parliamentary group of the DEKOS as well as from the party itself as in the vote for the election of the Speaker of the House he did not vote for the president of DIKOs, Mario Karoyan, but his main opponent, Giannakis Homer, resulting in the first not being re-elected in the position of Speaker of the Parliament. Zacharias Koulias continued his term as an independent MP. Shortly before the 2016 parliamentary election, and after a change in the leadership of DIKOs (as President Nicholas Papadopoulos) became a return agreement to the party, with which he claimed re-election.

As Member of Parliament, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Budget and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Works. Today he is the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on the Monitoring of Plans for the Development and Control of Public Expenditures, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence, the Parliamentary Committee on Institutions, Values and Commissioner of Administration and the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees-Immigrants-Paths and a member of the Parliamentary delegation to the Interparliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy.

He was re-elected in the 2021 parliamentary election for the XII Parliamentary Period.

References

Sources

MPs elected with the Democratic Party
Famagusta MPs
Cyprus lawyers
MPs VII Parliamentary Period (Cyprus)
Members of Parliament