Kiev: A new Ukrainian parliament dominated by lawmakers loyal to President Volodymyr Zelensky met for the first time on Thursday with the comedian-turned-politician looking to quickly pass new laws and form a government.
Zelensky was set to ask parliament to confirm another political novice, 35-year-old lawyer Oleksiy Goncharuk, as his prime minister.
Andriy Gerus, a lawmaker and presidential aide, said Goncharuk’s candidacy would be put to lawmakers on Thursday.
The 41-year-old Zelensky won a landslide election in April, announcing he planned to “break the system” that had ruled Ukraine since independence in 1991.
His newly created Servant of the People party won an absolute majority in snap parliamentary polls last month, handing him an unprecedented mandate for reforms.
Dressed in his trademark casual style with a dark suit but no tie, Zelensky attended the ceremonial swearing-in of MPs, watched by a group of former presidents and outgoing ministers.
He was to give an address to parliament setting out his political and economic goals and naming some of his cabinet choices.
Lawmakers loyal to Zelensky said MPs would accept the nomination of Goncharuk, who previously headed a consultancy funded by the European Union to promote small and medium-sized businesses called the Better Regulation Delivery Office.
Among Zelensky’s campaign promises were putting an end to the conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, fighting corruption and launching economic reforms in the ex-Soviet country that is one of the poorest in Europe.
Lawmakers on Thursday were also expected to vote on two key posts: the prosecutor general and the head of the SBU security service.
Zelensky’s team has instructed deputies to “prepare to work all night” from Thursday to Friday to study up to 100 laws, media reported. With many new political faces, the Servant of the People party won 254 seats out of 450 in last month’s polls. It was a result unprecedented in independent Ukraine, where a normally divided and often fractious parliament has been the scene of brawls.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity, and an extraordinary responsibility,” Sergiy Fursa, chief of Dragon Capital investment group, said on his blog.
“This parliament can either accelerate structural changes and transform the country” or “get bogged down in populism and change nothing,” he wrote.
The political landslide won by Zelensky and his party demonstrated the level of public frustration with the old elites, seen as corrupt and inefficient, and has ushered in a period of political change. — AFP
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