President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party just brought more than 250 new lawmakers into parliament. Now it’s sending them to school.
The lawmakers will take an intensive economics course at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) before taking office.
Riding on Zelensky’s popularity, Servant of the People won a single-party majority in Ukraine’s 424-member parliament in the July 21 snap elections.
Many of the people the party is bringing into office come from fields that are far from legislative work: there is an actor, a comedian, a school teacher, and a wedding photographer, to name just a few. To prep them for parliament, the party has arranged for them to go to business school.
Tymofiy Milovanov, head of KSE, announced on July 24 that his school will train the future lawmakers from Servant of the People, giving them a weeklong fast-track economics course.
“We’re trying to give the people who are responsible for our country the best tools, and to show them the international practices that will help to address their challenges,” Milovanov said in a Facebook post.
Olha Faratyeva, head of KSE’s public policy and governance department, also said that it was the party that came to KSE seeking the training. According to Faratyeva, another party was also looking into booking a course at KSE for its members. She didn’t name the party.
A Servant of the People representative said the training should help the future lawmakers understand and draft bills.
“We’re not saying that we expect to rush through five years of economics,” said Tetyana Tsyba, the party’s head of communications. “It’s an overview of the things necessary for lawmakers to draw up legislation.”
Milovanov said that the program is based on that of Harvard University and will feature the following topics: public strategies, public policy, macroeconomics and budgeting, sectoral economic policies, legislative framework, and soft skills. He added that lawmakers will be able to choose the topics which are most interesting to them.
Tsyba said that the program is obligatory for all elected Servant of the People party members and will begin on the week of July 29, before the newly elected legislators will take office.
“We don’t want them to be green lawmakers,” added Tsyba, making an unintentional reference to the color of the party and its leader Zelensky’s last name.
