Verkhovna Rada OKs resignations of Ministers Zvarych and Likhovyi (11/05/06)

Verkhovna Rada OKs resignations of Ministers Zvarych and Likhovyi

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Fed up with the Our Ukraine bloc's political indecisiveness, the country's coalition government led by the Party of the Regions let go two of the bloc's ministers from their posts.

American-born Minister of Justice Roman Zvarych and Minister of Culture Ihor Likhovyi were relieved during the November 1 session of Parliament, when their resignations, tendered two weeks earlier, were formally accepted by the Verkhovna Rada.

They were replaced with ministers who had served under former President Leonid Kuchma: Oleksander Lavrynovych became minister of justice and Yurii Lobutskyi is minister of culture.

"We can't allow ourselves to become hostages to someone's meditations, reflections, spiritual thoughts, hesitations, this kind of yearning for power," said Yaroslav Sukhyi, a Party of the Regions national deputy. "Give back your positions and tramp off!"

The Rada's move come after Our Ukraine People's Union (OUPU) Chair Roman Bezsmertnyi insisted the Our Ukraine bloc would enter the opposition, despite President Viktor Yushchenko's urgings to return to the negotiating table.

In relieving the two ministers, the Party of the Regions demonstrated that its patience had run out with Our Ukraine, a political force that it doesn't need because it has enough votes in Parliament after uniting in a coalition with the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) and Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU).

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said the government would have also let go Minister of Family, Youth and Sports Yurii Pavlenko and Minister of Health Yurii Poliachenko, both Our Ukraine members if not for the fact that the coalition government hadn't yet agreed on their replacements.

Ministers Zvarych, Likhovyi, Pavlenko and Poliachenko had submitted their resignations on October 19 once Our Ukraine declared it was going into opposition to the Yanukovych government.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Borys Tarasyuk and Minister of Defense Anatolii Hrytsenko are likely to remain in their posts because they are the two ministerial appointments designated by the Constitution of Ukraine to be made by the president of Ukraine.

Mr. Zvarych was reappointed justice minister on August 4, when it seemed possible that the Our Ukraine bloc would unite with the coalition government into a National Unity Coalition.

In their agreement, Our Ukraine managed to name four of its politicians to chair Cabinet ministries, in addition to Messrs. Tarasyuk and Hrytsenko.

This violated Ukraine's Constitution, experts said, because Our Ukraine wasn't formally a member of the coalition government, the so-called Anti-Crisis Coalition.

In the months since, President Yushchenko and other Our Ukraine leaders accused the coalition government of violating the Declaration of National Unity particularly on foreign policy issues.

Mr. Zvarych was born in Yonkers, N.Y., to Ukrainian immigrants. He was active in New York City's Ukrainian American community before pursuing a political career in Ukraine. He became a Ukrainian citizen in October 1993.

President Yushchenko first appointed Mr. Zvarych as his Justice Minister on February 4, 2005, following the Orange Revolution. He lost the position in September, after the president decided to sack his entire Cabinet.

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