New Cabinet headed by Tymoshenko is named
by Olga Nuzhinskaya
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly
KYIV - Yulia Tymoshenko, President Viktor Yushchenko's choice for prime minister, was approved by 373 national deputies voting in the Verkhovna Rada on Friday, February 4, with not a single vote cast against her. Her confirmation vote had been delayed by a day as various factions negotiated the composition of the Cabinet of Ministers that she now heads.
Prime Minister Tymoshenko, 44, has been the leader of the Batkivschyna Party since 1999. She previously served in the Ukrainian government, in the Cabinet headed by then Prime Minister Yushchenko, from December 1999 through January 2001; she held the post of vice prime minister for fuel and energy. She was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in April 2002 at the top of the list of candidates from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
Ms. Tymoshenko was born on November 27, 1960, in Dnipropetrovsk. She majored in economics at Dnipropetrovsk State University and completed a doctorate in the field in 1999. After working at the Lenin Machine Building Plant, the Terminal youth center and the Ukrainian Petroleum Corp. in her native city, she became head of Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine. For a short time she was a member of the Hromada Party once led by former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and was the party's first vice-chairperson.
Ms. Tymoshenko later became a co-founder with Mr. Yushchenko of the People's Power political coalition, and was seen by many throughout Ukraine as the soul of the Orange Revolution.
Ms. Tymoshenko's new Cabinet of Ministers includes three members of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, 15 members of the Our Ukraine coalition, one member of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and one additional member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz's politically risky decision to throw his support behind Viktor Yushchenko during Ukraine's mass protests paid big dividends as he won key government positions for his party.
Socialists will head the powerful Internal Affairs Ministry, which oversees the police, and the Agriculture Ministry, a key agency in the country formerly known as "the breadbasket of Europe" and one of the world's top grain exporters today. Those ministries will be headed by, respectively, Yurii Lutsenko and Oleksander Baranivskyi.
The party also received oblast chairmen's posts in the strategically important Black Sea port region of Odesa and the Poltava region. Mr. Moroz said that his party will also take over leadership of the State Property Fund, which is expected to play a key role in the new government's plans to reconsider some of Ukraine's murky post-Soviet privatization deals.
"I am convinced the participation of the Socialists will be essential," said Mykola Rudkovskyi, a Socialist member of the Verkhovna Rada. "I am sure that with such government positions, the Socialists will have influence on Cabinet policy."
The announcement of the top government positions on Friday, February 4, came after a 24-hour delay, sparked by haggling with the Socialists who threatened to move into opposition to the new government unless they were handed influential Cabinet positions.
Mr. Moroz played a crucial role in Mr. Yushchenko's presidential victory. After coming in third place in the first round of the presidential election, Mr. Moroz threw his support behind the Our Ukraine leader, even though they were mostly united only in their disdain for former President Leonid Kuchma's corruption-tainted rule.
After Mr. Yushchenko's rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, was declared the winner of the November 21 balloting, prompting mass protests, Mr. Moroz and his team joined Mr. Yushchenko in condemning the stolen votes. He became a regular figure alongside Mr. Yushchenko on Independence Square, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians gathered around-the-clock for weeks.
"Their positions are equal to their contribution," said Oleksander Dergachev, an analyst with the Kyiv-based Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies. "Now they can play an essential role in improving the situation in the country."
Mr. Moroz played down his party's success saying "we entered the government modestly today, but with very worthy people."
But the Socialist Party's win of the Internal Affairs Ministry post was seen as a major victory, especially because new Prime Minister Tymoshenko's ally, Oleksander Turchiynov, also was angling for the job.
"The more you have, the more you want, of course," said Stanislav Nikolayenko, the newly named minister of sicence and education. "But we think that for the current stage, this is enough."
The Socialists, who have never held real power in post-Soviet Ukraine, said their aim is to prove that they are up to the task. "I hope that we will be professional enough and have the honor to prove that Socialists are able to build, and not only tents," said the new internal affairs minister, Mr. Lutsenko.
Socialist Party Chairman Moroz described the appointment of the new government as a good start for reforms that the country needs. "This is also the beginning of preparations for democratizing all of society and the entire sphere of public affairs in Ukraine, after which the next elections will be held on a different basis and on different principles, and a coalition government will be put together," Mr. Moroz told journalists on February 4, according to Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, Mr. Moroz added: "I cannot say that I am fully satisfied with the quotas of positions in the government." He suggested that, in making government appointments, the president proceeded from "a balance of interests between the authorities and political forces."
National Deputy Viktor Pinchuk of the People's Will parliamentary faction told journalists he believes the appointment of the new government is a kind of carte blanche given to the president. "I believe everybody is giving carte blanche to the president," Mr. Pinchuk said. Of the new government's composition, he said, "I like the young faces."
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 13, 2005, No. 7, Vol. LXXIII
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