You're reading: Herman: ‘I am a dissident in this administration’

Hanna Herman, an adviser to President Viktor Yanukovych, said in a Kyiv Post interview that she considers herself a “dissident” in his administration defending the interests of her native western Ukraine.

Herman admitted, however, that she has struggled to achieve much in the Donetsk-dominated authorities.

Herman is from Kolodruby a village near Lviv in Ukrainian-speaking western Ukraine. In contrast, a large share of the top officials in Yanukovych’s presidential administration, government and majority parliament coalition are from the Russian-speaking eastern regions Ukraine, most notably from Donetsk. Yanukovych was governor of the region from 1997 to 2002.

First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka and Deputy Prime Minister Borys Kolesnikov all come from Donetsk Oblast, as do scores of other top officials.

Since Yanukovych took office in February 2010, he has overseen a number of policies widely viewed negatively and as pro-Russian in western Ukraine, such as the extension of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s leasing of a base in Sevastopol, Yanukovych’s denial that the 1932-3 famine in Ukraine was a Kremlin-orchestrated genocide and the appointment of controversial Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk.

In a recent interview, Herman told the Kyiv Post that she chose the role of defending western Ukrainian interests in 2004.

“When I first met Yanukovych, I knew that he and his people would come to power,” she said.

“They were powerful, rich and influential. When this happened [I thought] there had to be someone to tell them there is also this other land, there are these people [of western Ukraine].”

When I first met Yanukovych, I knew that he and his people would come to power.

– Hanna Herman, an adviser to President Viktor Yanukovych

“I am a dissident in this administration, because I keep stating unpopular things. I always raised the voice for the interest of western Ukraine within this administration,” she added.
Herman admitted, however, that she has had limited success.

“I did not claim that,” she said, when asked what her achievements had been.

After being appointed deputy head of the presidential administration in February 2010, Herman was in April shifted into a new role as head of the administration’s council on humanitarian and socio-political questions.

Meanwhile, experts say that Herman is little-liked in western Ukraine and far from considered an advocate of the region’s interests within the halls of government.

“She is not very much liked in Lviv and western Ukraine,” said Lviv-based political analyst Taras Vozniak.

“They may think that she betrayed them because she represents political interests different from those usually represented by political elites in western Ukraine,” he said, referring to that region’s more nationalist leanings.