28/02/2014 09:39
Ukraine's parliament confirms government as crises loom
Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday confirmed an interim government that includes leading figures of a protest movement that spearheaded the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, RIA Novosti reported.
Arseny Yatsenyuk, 39, who was economy minister for a year up until August 2006, was approved as head of a Cabinet that will need to steer Ukraine through a perilous debt crisis and restore stability to the deeply divided country.
Yatsenyuk’s nomination as prime minister was supported by 371 deputies in the 450-seat parliament.
His nomination was put forward by a newly formed governing 250-deputy strong coalition, called European Choice, which incorporates Yatsenyuk’s Batkivshchyna party.
Deputies approved former central bank head Oleksander Shlapak as finance minister, Andriy Deshchitsya as acting foreign minister and Ihor Tenyukh as acting defense minister.
Other prominent Cabinet appointments include Arsen Avakov as interior minister and Dmitry Bulatov as sports minister. A leading figure in the protest movement, Bulatov was at the peak of the demonstrations kidnapped by unknown individuals and days later found in a forest bearing signs of torture.
The parliament has since the weekend approved a raft of measures aimed at expunging traces of Yanukovych’s rule.
In Thursday’s session, deputies voted to restore the 2004 constitution in a move that will boost the powers of parliament and water down the authority of the president.