Taras Shevchenko – reformer of the week
Taras Shevchenko, the head of Ukrainian Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law think tank, has been selected as one of this year’s 16 Yale World Fellows. He will attend the U.S. university on a four-month academic and leadership training program.
Shevchenko, 40, who also co-chairs the board of the Reanimation Package of Reforms activists’ group, is the fourth Yale World Fellow to be selected from Ukraine since the program was launched in 2002.
“We at the Reanimation Package of Reforms have been working on changes for our country for the last three years. We have been unable to achieve many things,” he said. “I hope that my new experience will be useful for reforming the country.”
Shevchenko said he wanted to join the program because it was among the best in the world. He is now looking forward to attending Yale’s program, which each year invites a group of mid-career professionals from different fields and countries for an intensive four-month period of academic enrichment and leadership training.
Shevchenko has been involved in drafting numerous legislative acts, including legislation on access to public information. He has launched successful civic initiatives in various areas including good governance, transparency, media self-regulation, anti-tobacco, and road safety.
– Alyona Zhuk
Artur Gerasimov – anti-reformer of the week
Lawmaker Artur Gerasimov on April 3 became the head of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko parliamentary faction, exposing the extent to which the president is co-opting controversial ex-loyalists of his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych.
In 2012, Gerasimov ran as a representative of Luhansk Oblast-based businessman Serhiy Shakhov’s team for a parliamentary seat in Donetsk Oblast, but lost. Shakhov is a notorious former ally of Yanukovych and his prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka.
Meanwhile, Kremlin-backed separatist leader Igor Bezler claims that he used to be head of Gerasimov’s security in 2012. “Artur used to spend nights at my house and talk to me on the balcony about parliament’s insider information,” Bezler said on April 3. “We went to Yalta for an economic forum and spent a night in one hotel room there.”
Volodymyr Poddubny, a former political associate of Shakhov and Gerasimov, has confirmed this. But Gerasimov has claimed that Bezler had never been head of his security but had only worked as a driver for him for a week.
Gerasimov co-heads Donbas, a charity, with Oleh Nedava, a Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker and close associate of Yanukovych ally Yury Ivanyushchenko.
Last year Mykola Chaus, a judge accused of having ties to Poroshenko and his protégés, took Ivanyushchenko, a suspect in a graft case, off the wanted list. The Ivanyushchenko case was closed in February by the Supreme Court.
– Oleg Sukhov
