Yatseniuk expected to stay on as prime minister of Ukraine

Ukraine’s Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday he expected to stay on as prime minister at the head of a new pro-Europe, reformist government as his party hung on to a slight lead in last Sunday’s election with the vote count nearly complete.
Power-sharing talks have been going on behind the scenes inUkraine after the poll gave a resounding win to parties committed to European integration, shifting the ex-Soviet republic further away from the Russian orbit despite rebellion by pro-Russian separatists in the east.
Referring to his People’s Front party, Yatseniuk said: «The party which has taken first place in the elections has to begin the process of forming a coalition … the leader of (this) party heads the government.»
People’s Front was still slightly ahead of the political group of President Petro Poroshenko, taking just over 22 percent of the vote for parties with more than 98 percent of the votes for parties counted.
There has been speculation that Poroshenko, a 49-year-old confectionery magnate who emerged as president from turmoil last winter in which a Moscow-backed leader was ousted, would prefer to have a close party ally, Volodymyr Groysman, who is currently a deputy prime minister, as head of a new government.
Groysman’s role in working out a blueprint for de-centralising local powers in the separatist-minded east feeds into the task of bringing peace to the region, one of the main tasks before the new leadership.
Yatseniuk confirmed all the same that, as prime minister, he would expect to work in close tandem with Poroshenko.
He said Poroshenko’s bloc was «the main strategic partner for bringing about change in the country,» confirming that the partnership between the two men would be likely to dominate the political landscape in the near future.
Sunday’s election and the formation of a new parliament and government are intended to draw a line under the turmoil and war of the past year.
 

Читать полностью здесь: IPnews

---

---