The only thing we can be sure of is that the new Cabinet is extremely unlikely to usher in a new quality of governance, which Ukraine so desperately needs.
And it’s not for lack of worthy people who could take the high seats on Hrushevsky Street, where the main Cabinet building is located.
In fact, Ukraine has in two decades developed an impressive pool of young people that have the requisite background, knowledge, honesty, passion and a number of other qualities to change Ukraine. There are enough of them to form several Cabinets, all of which could be successful and would allow the nation to make a leap forward.
Right now, appointments to the government are made on the basis of political expediency, cronyism and corruption – most likely in reverse order.
Competence often has no relevance. What I would like to see in Ukraine is a government with top officials picked for their competence, who have the correlative education and work experience to perform on the job, and who possess a global outlook that would come from either their Western education or professional experience with international institutions and/or companies.
Ideally, I would like these people to be young, speak foreign languages and be completely self-made.
In the best-case scenario, I would like them to have the kind of integrity and reputation that would not raise questions about how they made their first million or acquired certain assets.
I know a few such people, and have asked a select group of individuals in business, the expert community and media to suggest their own candidates who would be fit for a Dream Team Cabinet. The resulting pool of suggested candidates was very inspiring and optimistic.
What I would like to see in Ukraine is a government with top officials picked for their competence, who have the correlative education and work experience to perform on the job, and who possess a global outlook that would come from either their Western education or professional experience with international institutions and/or companies.
Of course, Ukraine’s Cabinet of 18 members is way too large and inefficient, and to change that a comprehensive administrative reform would be needed in the whole executive branch. Otherwise, even the most inspiring leader would get bogged down by infighting, intrigue and inability to realize any ideas. Luckily, there are people around capable of filling in those gaps, too.
Economy and finance
Economy and banking degrees have been prestigious in Ukraine for too many years and too many universities offer them.
Apart from the obvious downsides, this fashion has the upside of having produced a number of really wonderful, international-caliber economists and bankers.
Ruslan Piontkivskiy, who has been working as a senior economist for the World Bank office that covers Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, is one of them. Apart from having a good education and nearly 10 years of experience at a major international institution, he has an amazing ability to grasp the most complex economic models quickly, interpret them and communicate them to others – a great set of qualities for a minister to possess.
My finance minister would be Volodymyr Lytvyn, not the cunning speaker of parliament, but the one with a public financial management degree from Harvard University, an MSc in banking and international finance from Cass in France, and a BSc in economics from Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
He was a deputy finance minister briefly, between 2007 and 2009, and has worked for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development in the energy sector, as well as investment banking.
My justice minister would be Oleg Marchenko, a young Kyiv-based lawyer. Apart from a solid education, I chose him for his outstanding integrity.
Once a partner at Magisters, a huge and successful Ukrainian company (which has since merged with a Russian firm) that produced many famous public figures, including Serhiy Vlasenko, the lawyer of Yulia Tymosheno, Marchenko once told me why he quit the lucrative partnership at the big firm.
He decided to set up his own company, Ulysses, because he believed that cases should be won through knowledge and skill alone, without bribes. This is how his company operates: they never give bribes for anything in courts, and they share risks with clients.
These kinds of values are essential for a justice minister.
Although not formally a Cabinet member, the general prosecutor is an essential part of the justice system in Ukraine. My candidate for general prosecutor is Valentyna Telychenko, a brave lawyer, hard worker and uncompromising human being.
She is the one who won former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko’s case in the European Court for Human rights, which shows both her qualifications and knowledge of how justice operates outside Ukraine.
She has learned the workings of the prosecutor’s office intimately over the last decade when she represented the family of slain journalist Georgiy Gongadze, seeking justice and fighting the system. She knows exactly what is wrong with the system, which is essential to fixing it.
There are worth candidates to head the education and health ministries, which affect the quality of life of all Ukrainians.
For health minister, there is Borys Todurov, a highly professional, world class surgeon, with a vision of what it takes to reform the sector, and who is a moral authority in the profession.
There is Kateryna Bulavinova, a UNICEF expert, also an extremely competent and authoritative figure.
In education, there is academician Volodymyr Nikitin, a person who reinvented an education system that already exists in Scandinavian countries.
He believes in teaching people to think and to learn – in the broadest sense of the word education, and that the teacher is an important personal guide in this process. These concepts are still pretty alien here, for the most part.
Another recommendation for this job was Pavlo Kobzei of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, one of the most innovative universities at the moment. He has taught in schools and universities, has been trained through international programs and has written papers on strategy in the education sector.
The Foreign Ministry also has a number of good contenders. There is even one active diplomat who was named by my reference group as a great potential diplomat: Palvo Klimkin.
Formerly a top ministry worker, he now serves in Germany. He is described as a great person to be the face of Ukraine, an intellectual and extremely competent in his job and understanding diplomacy as such.
Pavlo Sheremeta, an economist by training, would make a good foreign minister, particularly if promotion of economic relations becomes a priority for the ministry one day.
Hlib Vyshlinskiy, deputy head of GfK Ukraine market research company, would make a great minister without portfolio (although this job does not exist at the moment). He has amazing competence in many social, economic and other spheres, is well-traveled and a fantastic manager.
Vinnytsia Mayor Volodymyr Groysman, who has triumphantly been elected in his city twice, could become a good, although somewhat offbeat, prime minister or deputy prime minister. He has transformed the very concept and practice of governance in his hometown, and has decided to move into big politics by creating his own party.
My intention, however, was not to write a full list of potential Cabinet members – although there seem to be plenty of candidates for every seat.
It’s to show that Ukraine has potential in its young generation – most people on my list are in their 30s and 40s.
I hope one day they will be able to form the backbone of Ukraine’s government.
In the meantime, it looks like we will have to have a couple more years of Mykola Azarov as prime minister.
Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected].
