Parliamentary coalition to be divided into 15 groups of People’s Servant MPs

The People’s Servant parliamentary faction, which will
form the parliamentary coalition and Cabinet of Ministers on its own, will be
divided into 15 groups responsible for various spheres, the nv.ua news site
reported on Aug. 5. Each group will be led by a deputy faction head, with the
faction head likely to be 40-year-old IT entrepreneur David Arakhamia (Braun). The news
site confirmed that Dmytro Razumkov is the leading candidate for parliamentary
speaker, Bohdan Yaremenko is the top candidate to chair the parliamentary
foreign affairs committee and Maria Mezentseva will be the nominee for the
Euro-integration committee chair.

In addition, the news site reported as candidates to
lead parliamentary committees the 41-year-old academic Danylo Hetmatsev as the
likely head of the tax, customs and financial policy committee, the 40-year-old
law professor Iryna Venediktova as the likely head of the judiciary committee,
the 44-year-old entrepreneur Yuriy Aristov as the likely budget committee chair
and the 35-year-old NGO expert Anastasia Krasnosilska as the likely
anti-corruption committee head. The news site also identified the top candidate
to chair the parliamentary fuel and energy committee as the 37-year-old Andriy
Gerus, the former Concorde Capital executive director who currently serves as
the president’s representative to the Cabinet of Ministers.

Zenon Zawada: The proposed parliamentary committee chairs are heavy on academics and
weak on experience. This is positive from the viewpoint that they haven’t been
corrupted by Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt political system. But this is
negative in the sense that they will face fierce opposition to their attempts
at reform from players who are deeply familiar and entrenched in Ukraine’s
byzantine political bureaucracy. Just how this battle will play out will be
fascinating to observe in the coming months, and we believe some success at
significant reforms is inevitable. While the Old Guard political and business
elites are likely to be hostile, the public will offer its full support if it
sees a sincere and effective reform campaign.