Speaking in parliament on June 19, Poroshenko said he
wanted to form a team of “patriots, professionals and like-minded people,”
proposing Pavlo Klimkin as foreign minister, Valeria Gontareva to head the National Bank of Ukraine and Viltaly
Yarema as prosecutor general.
By law, the president can also
appoint and dismiss the country’s minister of defense and the head of the State
Security Service (SBU).
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The appointments show that Poroshenko is seeking to
fill out his government with people he knows and trusts, experts say.
“These candidacies were expected,” said Volodymyr
Fesenko, head of the Penta political think tank. “Gontareva is respected in
business circles. She will be Poroshenko’s person, with whose help he will
control the stability of the financial system.”
“Klimkin, I think, is chosen as the president praised
him in times when he [Poroshenko] worked as a minister of foreign affairs,”
Fesenko added.
Klimkin has served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany
since June 2012. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Physics and
Technology, specializing in Aero Physics and Space Research. He began his
diplomatic career in 1993, in the department of arms control and disarmament in
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. From 1997 to 2000, Klimkin was entrusted as the
Secretary to the Ambassador of Ukraine in Germany on scientific and technical
issues, as well as political issues.
Interim Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia has
served in the post since Feb. 27, during which time he earned a reputation
as an ardent critic of Russia. On June 15, he appeared at a rally near the
Russian Embassy in Kyiv to try to temper protesters who defaced the building
and hurled eggs and stones at it following the downing of a Ukrainian plane by
separatists who fired Russian weapons at it, killing 49 servicemen in Luhansk.
Outside the embassy, he was caught on film calling Russian President Vladimir
Putin a “khuilo,” an obscene term in both Russian and Ukrainian meaning a part
of the male anatomy.
Fesenko said that Deshchytsia, the country’s top
diplomat, made the undiplomatic move knowing his dismissal was imminent.
Deshchytsia hailed Klimkin’s appointment on June 18, writing on Twitter: “I
know Pavlo as an effective professional. As for me, I am ready to continue to
work for Ukraine’s good.”
Former investment banker Gontareva, whose name
Poroshenko put forward to head the National Bank of Ukraine, has worked as
Chairwoman of the Board at Investment Capital Ukraine (ICU) since December
2007. Prior to joining ICU, she worked for 18 years in leading local and
international financial institutions.
The now former head of the NBU, Stepan Kubiv, is
a former Kredobank head and was a commander during the EuroMaidan Revolution,
during which time he was responsible for money donated for activists. Before
the protests, Kubiv was vice head of the parliamentary committee for finance
and banking. He was appointed as National Bank head after the change of power on Feb
24.
Kubiv claimed he was dismissed at his own request and
posted on his Facebook page a letter of resignation, in which he said he plans
to focus on “political activity” instead of government work.
Ahead of his nomination,
Yarema served as First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine responsible for law
enforcement and the power block of the Cabinet. Yarema studied at Kaliningrad
High Police School and Ukraine’s Academy of Internal Affairs before serving as
Kyiv city police chief.
Yarema replaces acting Prosecutor
General Oleg Makhnitsky, a nationalist Svoboda party member, who was appointed
to his post on Feb. 24.
Fesenko said that by replacing
Makhnitsky with former policemen Yarema, the president is showing his resolve
to fight corruption, particularly within the prosecutor’s office.
There are talks that Valery
Kovalchuk, the head of Poroshenko’s election campaign, could be appointed to
fill Yarema’s old position of first deputy prime minister soon, Fesenko added.
Poroshenko thanked the three
dismissed former officials, and said he proposed an advisor role to Makhnitsky,
an ambassador position to Deshchytsia and planned to give “an important post”
to Kubiv soon.
Kyiv Post staff writers Iryna Yeroshko and Oksana Grytsenko can be reached
at yeroshkoiryna@gmail.com and grytsenko@kyivpost.com.
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