Dec 18, 2007, 15:41 GMT
Kiev - Ukraine's parliament elected a new government on Tuesday, placing a slate of reformers into top legislative and cabinet posts.
The vote reflected the marginal advantage held by pro-Europe forces in the Ukrainian legislature, with the ayes having it by only two votes, in the 450-seat house.
MPs had elected reformer Yulia Tymoshenko Prime Minister, and sacked the previous government, in similarly tight votes earlier in the day.
The margin, though skin-tight, marked a dramatic victory for reform forces in Ukraine, where months of infighting and arguing over cabinet appointments during 2005 led to the fall of a pro-Europe government, and its replacement by a pro-Russia government.
Although it was not at all clear whether the reform majority could hold all MPs to the new majority even a few months, given the ease with which loyalties transfer in Ukrainian politics, it was still one of the quickest-formed cabinets in the country's recent history.
According to its supporters, Ukraine's new cabinet was in any case the first one actually elected, rather than selected behind closed doors.
'This is the first democratically-elected administration in our country's history,' said parliament speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk. 'I congratulate you.'
A top name in Tymoshenko's new cabinet was the Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko, head of the junior Our Ukraine National Self Defence party, the junior party in the Tymoshenko-led ruling coalition.
Lutsenko during his a stint in the job in 2005 - 2006 established a reputation as an uncompromising opponent of government corruption, endearing his party to voters but making him a figure hated by leaders of Ukraine's corporate clans, based mostly in the country's industrial south.
Another key reformer was likely to be Viktor Pynzennik, a former Minister of Finance responsible for forcing much of Ukraine's shift to a market economy in the 1990s, who took up the job again as a result of the vote.
The critical Ministry of Fuel and Energy went to Yury Prodan', formerly head of the national energy utility, and an appointee in that job by pro-Europe President Viktor Yushchenko.
Tymoshenko during election campaigning prior to September elections named total control of the country's Interior, Justice, and Energy industries as critical in any attempt to regulate Ukraine's notoriously corrupt oil and gas industries.
Many members of the new cabinet remained at their posts from the previous cabinet, or were career administrators moving up in the hierarchy.
Agencies now to be headed by such carry-over politicians included the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Industrial Policy, Agriculture, and Health.
But change appeared to be in the cards in many areas of Ukrainian society, as a result of the appointments.
One of the most controversial may prove to be the appointment to the Ministry of Education of Ivan Vakarshchiuk, rector of Lviv Technical University and a long-time supporter of universal education in the Ukrainian language.
Language is a touchy subject in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin in comments to reporters in Moscow earlier in the day said the Kremlin was 'very interested in protecting' Russian language-speakers in Ukraine. Putin's position, popular in Russia, is highly contentious in Ukraine.
Mykola Onishchiuk, the new Justice Minister and in recent years head of a parliamentary committee investigating possible foreign financing to Ukrainian politicians, may also raise hackles, if as his party promises the new government begins an active campaign against government corruption.
Other appointments were less controversial, for instance the naming of former Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov, a reform politician linked to Yushchenko, but known to oppose Tymoshenko, to head the Defence Ministry.
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