Yulia Tymoshenko, Our New Prime Minister

Ukraine’s government realigned itself on a decidedly pro-Western course after its parliament voted Dec. 18 to return Yulia Tymoshenko to the prime minister chair by the slimmest of margins.

After her election, Tymoshenko reaffirmed her intention to radically reform the Ukrainian government; a plan that includes reducing bureaucracy, revamping the 2008 budget and reorganizing the opaque natural gas sector.

“Practically everything in this country is misbalanced,” Tymoshenko told reporters.

“Making money off politics has become the norm. Making money off government has become the norm. Chaos, indecisiveness and tactics instead of strategy have become the norm in practically every branch and sphere of our lives,” she said.

“All this must finally be defeated. I have the intention, as the newly elected prime minister, to instill order in the country quite dynamically and effectively, but without losing ties with all political forces.”

In the same session parliament approved by two votes Tymoshenko’s Cabinet of Ministers, which includes a foreign affairs minister who favors NATO membership and a physics professor and university rector as education minister. In divvying Cabinet posts, the Tymoshenko Bloc gained control of the economic sphere, Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense received humanitarian posts and the Presidential Secretariat was given the armed forces. The first moves declared by Tymoshenko included cutting bureaucracy in the government’s ministries. -Kyiv Post

Ukraine has both a President and Prime Minister, so this doesn't mean Yulia will be suddenly calling all the shots, but it does mean that at least in theory, Yulia will be asking some tough questions of those who have been "running" the government. I can't pretend to fully understand the politics of Ukraine, but I do know that if she was running for President in the United States, I'd vote for her. She has something that most U.S. politicians lack, style. Her style includes making bold statements about her intentions and her beliefs regarding the opposition parties. The typical American politician would cringe at the thought of really saying what's on their mind or worse yet make a decisive statement about something they couldn't back peddle out of later. So for whatever faults Prime Minister Tymoshenko might have, I applaud her willingness to stand up and boldly say what she thinks. Imagine how much easier it might be to choose a candidate to vote for if the candidates weren't afraid to speak their minds for fear that they might actually have to stand on one side of the fence or the other. People might not agree with everything that Yulia does, but at least she does it with style.


During Yulia's campaign, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing some catchy Yulia logo or T-shirt. The boys even got these cool Yulia notebooks at school with a flowery, artistic picture of her on them. Kids actually wore shirts and back packs with a cartoon image of Yulia on them because she's the coolest candidate to hit the campaign trail yet. I was just wondering how a similar campaign might work for Hillary. Hmmm...