Page 11 - UKRRptSept19

Local Governance and Regional Development Committee Head Andriy Klochko
National Security, Defense and Intelligence Head Oleksandr Zavitnevych Freedom of Speech Committee Head Nestor Shufrych
Social Policy and Veterans Rights Committee Head Halyna Tretiakova Youth and Sports Committee Head Andriy Kozhemiakin
Rules Committee Head Serhiy Kalchenko
Parliamentary factions:
The People’s Servant (254 MPs) Faction Head David Arakhamia
Opposition Platform For Life (44 MPs) Faction Co-Heads Yuriy Boyko, Vadym Rabinovych
European Solidarity (27 MPs) Faction Co-Heads Artur Herasymov and Iryna Herashchenko
Fatherland (25 MPs) Faction Head Yulia Tymoshenko
Voice (17 MPs) Faction Head Serhiy Rakhmanin
For the Future (23 MPs) Group Co-Heads Viktor Bondar, Taras Batenko
2.3 New government sets itself ambitious legislative agenda
The new Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in a hurry. He is complete control of the country’s legislative process and has a huge mandate from the people after he and his party won twin landslide victories for the presidency and parliament this year. But the honeymoon period is bound to be short lived given the scale of the reform task he faces and the venal nature of the vested interest infected nature of Ukrainian politics. The government has to push through as many of the painful major reforms it can while it is still riding on the wave of support that swept it into office.
“Now we have a unique situation, a truly unique chance to implement all the necessary reforms. I really want that. We have everything: political will of the President, majority in the Verkhovna Rada, government and Prime Minister that are willing to work. The only thing we lack is time. Society won’t wait for something to start working in Ukraine in several years,” Zelenskiy said during the open session of the Verkhovna Rada on August 29.
Ukraine’s government will target economic growth of 5% next year and at least 7% in each of the following years, the newly appointed Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said at a televised government meeting on September 2. The economy grew by 3.3% last year and the official forecast for this year is growth of around 3% this year.
“The main priority for the government is economic growth. Economic growth is the answer to most of the problems that the state has,” Honcharuk said.
A new cabinet was sworn in with an average age of 39 – the youngest government in Ukraine’s history – that is largely made up of liberal reformers with a few hold overs from the previous administration of the most competent bureaucrats and a couple of concessions to the other new liberal parties that competed in the elections. However, Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People (SOTP) party is firmly in charge controlling 19 out of the 23 committees that actually do the legislative work.
Addressing Ukraine’s new cabinet, the leaders of parliament and the nation,
11 UKRAINE Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com