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Foreign Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk elected speaker of Parliament

05 December 2007 09:19 (UTC +04:00)

Regions Party, the Communist Party and the Lytvin Bloc did not attend voting. Members of Regions Party chaired by Victor Yanukovich wanted to impede voting process and but orange coalition did not give them such chance. One of the leaders of Regions Party Sergey Kiselyov also entered one of the cabinets and tried to break election process. He took ballot-paper from member of Yulia Tymoshenko bloc Sergey Teryokhin and tore it into pieces. But members of ruling coalition did not allow it and moved him away. Leaders of orange coalition Vyacheslav Kyrylenko and Yulia Tymoshenko presented bunch of flowers to new speaker after results were publicized.
Yatsenyuk addressed the parliament as a speaker for the first time and said that opposition should be given posts in parliament.
I will be a speaker of the whole chamber. Every parliamentarian will have equal rights and we will form working body and direct it to the development of Ukraine. The next step will be formation of democratic government,â€ he said.
After meeting ended, members of Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Bloc and Yulia Tymoshenko sang state hymn.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk is the youngest speaker in modern history of Ukraine. He was born in 1974 in Chernivtsi. He graduated from two higher schools, he is lawyer and economist. He was Minister of Economy of Crimea, served as the first vice-president of the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, vice-governor of the Odessa Oblast Administration, Minister of Economy of Ukraine, first vice-president of the Head of Government of the President of Ukraine and Foreign Minister of Ukraine. He is married, has one daughter. /APA/