Natalie Jaresko emerges as top candidate for Ukrainian Prime Minister
The Head of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, Natalya Jaresko, tentatively agreed to be Prime Minister under certain conditions, as reported by Ukrainskaya Pravda, referring to sources in the President’s Administration.
The sources state that Jaresko will chair the Cabinet of Ministers only if certain conditions are met, including the maintenance of a technocratic government without party quotas and the absence of any political influence. Jaresko also demanded that she be allowed to engage in direct dialogue with the Parliament and receive support for governmental initiatives by all factions of coalitions including “Petro Poroshenko Block”, which the current Minister of Finance has an uneasy relationship with.
It was also reported that Jaresko proposed several candidates for the future government, including Boris Lozhkin and Dmitry Shimkiv as Deputy Prime Ministers and the current Vice Minister of Economy, Yuliya Kovaliv, as the Minister of Energy.
At the same time, Jaresko also named several people she would like to see in the future Cabinet.
“The Presidential Administration has tentatively agreed to such conditions”, the message stated.
In early February, when announcing his resignation, the Head of the Ministry of Economy Aivaras Abromavičius proposed nominating Jaresko as Prime Minister. However, she did not comment on the statement.
On February 16, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine failed to adopt a resolution of no confidence in the government headed by Yatsenyuk which would have lead to the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Later Yatsenyuk stated that it would be beneficial for him to resign. However, he wouldn’t do that because, according to him, there would not be changes in the country if there were changes in Government. Moreover, the Prime Minister accused the President of Ukraine of creating an atmosphere of “political uncertainty”.
On February 24, the Mayor of Lvov Andrey Sadovyi told the media about the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko’s decision to ask Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to resign.