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Ukraine will have to live with its caretaker government until at least Dec. 2,  after the new parliamentary coalition failed to agree on a new Cabinet of Ministers this week.

The first session of the new parliament closed on Nov. 27 with Arseniy Yatsenyk’s reappointment as prime minister and creation of a ruling coalition of five pro-European parties. It is now expected to nominate government ministerial candidates, but the debate around personalities has been so heated that Oleksandr Turchynov, leader of President Petro Poroshenko’s faction in parliament, suggested that the new prime minister will be the only one working in the Cabinet.

So far, there isn’t even a single vision in the coalition on how to form the government. Some parties insist that the new government should be purely a technocratic one, while others insist that parties should delegate political appointees as a more responsible form of governance.

“It should be a government formed not from representatives of political forces or lawmakers who work in parliament, but from people who have the trust of professional communities, independence from political forces or political ratings,” says Yegor Sobolev of Samopomich, which is not nominating any of its members to the Cabinet. Instead, they want to delegate their own Oksana Syroid to be deputy speaker.

Members of current government applaud at the first session of the new parliament on Nov. 27. New ministers may be appointed as early as Dec. 2.

Sobolev said Samopomich suggested a number of such candidates, and applauded Poroshenko’s idea to appoint a foreigner as head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and other Cabinet jobs, which he voiced during his greetings to the new lawmakers.

“I have a concrete suggestion to all involved, according to procedure spelled out in law, to the appointment of this extremely important institution. I suggest inviting to this job a person from outside of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said. “Thus, we will have an advantage – an absence of connections in the Ukrainian political elite,” Poroshenko explained.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau is yet to be created, and is supposed to fight top-level corruption. It has already been dubbed “Ukraine’s FBI,” and the process of its creation is being closely watched by Ukraine’s foreign creditors and the local business community.

Moreover, Poroshenko said he wanted to amend the law to allow foreigners to take other top jobs, or simplify the procedure for granting Ukrainian citizenship to foreigners.
“My idea is, by changing the law, to allow foreigners into state service, including government seats, or extend the list of persons the president can grant Ukrainian citizenship, through fast tracking,” Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko’s administration hired an international recruiting company, Korn Ferry, and its local branch WE Partners, to identify candidates for the next government. They approached foreigners in Ukraine and abroad. They are American, Lithuanian and Georgian nationals, according to Insider.ua, a Ukrainian site that specializes in political news.

The Georgian nationals are believed to be young reformers from the former government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Yury Lutsenko, leader of Poroshenko’s Bloc, said there would me more than four foreigners in the next Cabinet.

There are many critics of this idea. Vyacheslav Kyrylenko of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front said foreigners in new government “aren’t a panacea” and should be appointed as advisers. Yatsenyuk’s colleagues insist that appointments should be partisan and political, otherwise the government would not be manageable.

Members of the Opposition Bloc are even more critical. “The authorities are testifying to their own staffing impotence, and also that among 40 million Ukrainians there are no honest and professional people,” says Serhiy Lyovochkin, former chief of staff to President Viktor Yanukovych. “This is called external control, and this way we might end up inviting the president and prime minister from abroad.”

Kyrylenko said he believes “a golden middle” will be found in the debate between politicians and business professionals in the new government, and it will be done by Dec. 2, in time for the new parliament’s second day in session.

Possible new government ministers
Deputy Prime Minister Mikheil Saakashvili, Ivan Miroshnychenko, Igor Zhdanov
Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak (incumbent)
Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk, Natalie Jaresko, Vitaly Lisovenko
Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin (incumbent)
Education Minister Sergiy Kvit (incumbent)
Energy Minister Serhiy Kobolev, Roman Rubchenko
Economy Minister Dmytro Shymkiv
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (incumbent), Oleh Liashko
Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko (incumbent)
Agrarian Minister Alex Lissitsa, Leonid Kozachenko
Minister of Social Policy Pavlo Rozenko
Health Minister Vasyl Lazoryshynets
Culture Minister Yevhen Nyshchuk (incumbent)
Minister of Youth and Health Denys Sylantiyev
Ecology Minister Hanna Hopko
National Bank Governor Volodymyr Lavrenchuk
National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov
Source: Kyiv Post research, Ukrainska Pravda, political parties

Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]

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