ARSENIY YATSENYUK ELECTED SPEAKER

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Incumbent Foreign minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, 33, representing the "Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense" and having been nominated by the democratic coalition, was elected as the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Tuesday evening. Irrespective of reluctance of the Regions Party, CPU and partly Lytvyn bloc to back him, he managed to collect the needed 227 votes via secret ballot.

In his message in the VR, Arseniy Yatsenyuk noted "we have proved the coalition is real and the next step we will take is the Cabinet reshuffle".

He said the speaker is just one of 250 MPs, having the same rights as others.
He said the parliament leader must first of all be "a person for the Verkhovna Rada", a person to organize the work of the deputies, as the parliament is one of the weighty branches of the Ukrainian authority. According to Yatsenyuk, it is important to find consensus in the session hall, he added "the specific character of the Verkhovna Rada is consolidation of positions of different political forces, at least in paramount political moments. We cannot have debates in such key national priorities, as independence, statehood, territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, human rights and freedom of expression.

Among the parliament's priorities Yatsenyuk named the program of social-economic development of the state and promised to guard "multilateral diplomacy in the walls of the parliament and European parliamentarism in Ukraine
Arseniy Yatsenyuk graduated form the Chernivtsi Economic University Law Department and the Kyiv Trade-Economic University and debuted in a commercial bank. He occupied the post of the First Deputy Chairman of the Odesa Regional State Administration, First Deputy Head of the Ukrainian National Bank (2003 to 2005) and Economy Minister (2005 to 2006).

He later worked as the First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Secretariat, the president's representative to the Cabinet of ministers and finally the Foreign Minister, appointed in 2007.

UKRINFORM