The parliamentary party of Ukrainian President-elect Viktor Yanukovich has narrowed down the search for a new prime minister to three men.
Following are details about the candidates Yanukovich named in a television interview on Sunday:
SERGEY TIGIPKO The 50-year-old businessman has re-entered politics in the past 12 months after a four-year break.
After coming a strong third in the first round of the presidential election, he declined to lend his support to either of the two leading candidates, Yanukovich or Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Tigipko has his own political party, but it was formed after the last parliamentary election and is not represented in the assembly.
Tigipko has said he is ready to take on the premiership if the new president agrees to "unpopular" reforms as Ukraine reels from a deep economic crisis.
A former central bank chairman and owner of several companies, he is seen as capable of authoring a programme of reforms. Whether he will succeed in pushing them through may depend on Yanukovich’s wealthy industrialist backers.
Tigipko worked as Yanukovich’s campaign manager in 2004 but quit just before a third round of voting was called following the "Orange Revolution" mass protests against electoral fraud. Yanukovich lost that third round.
ARSENIY YATSENYUK The 35-year-old has already held a host of high-level positions including foreign minister, acting chairman of the central bank and speaker of parliament.
Although a supporter of the outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, Yatsenyuk was able to get the necessary parliamentary endorsement of Yanukovich’s Regions party as a compromise candidate with his pragmatic approach.
Yatsenyuk is a lawyer and economist by training. His youthfulness has helped him to present himself as a fresh face, untainted by the political turmoil since the Orange Revolution.
He has said Ukraine should not choose between good ties with Russia or the West, but should find a middle way. He wants to make the key steel, chemicals and grain industries more competitive and improve health and education.
But his call for the very oligarchs who support Yanukovich to be ejected from parliament weighs against his candidacy.
Like Tigipko, he created a party after the last parliamentary election, so it is not represented in the assembly.
MYKOLA AZAROV
Azarov, 63, is an old ally of Yanukovich’s and helped to steer Ukraine’s economy under Yanukovich’s premierships in 2002-2004 and 2006-2007 as his finance minister. He was seen as a safe pair of hands who managed the state’s finances well.
The Russian-born, Moscow-educated politician came to Ukraine at the age of 36 and has never learnt to speak Ukrainian.
Under ex-president Leonid Kuchma, he pushed the idea of creating a single economic zone with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, which some said would hurt Ukraine’s integration with Europe and the WTO, of which it is now member.
Although ultimately he did not succeed, Russian media reported last week that Yanukovich could want to join a recently created Russian-Kazakh-Belarussian customs union, citing sources in the current government. (Writing by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
