CNN: Bulgarian Assembly OKs Government Resignation

Bulgaria's National Assembly voted Thursday to accept the government's resignation, assembly press official Maria Missova said.

Out of 240 assembly deputies, 215 were present, 209 voted yes, 5 no, and 1 abstained, she said.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov tendered his government's resignation Wednesday after eight days of nationwide protests over high energy bills, his office said. Protests against soaring electricity bills have morphed into wider discontent over austerity and the way the country is being run, the official Bulgarian News Agency reported.

Borisov, who has been prime minister since 2009, earlier told lawmakers his GERB party would not be part of a caretaker government. Bulgaria, a country of just over 7 million people, held its first free multiparty elections since World War II in 1990, according to the CIA World Factbook.