Finally--A Government

In March, Ukraine elected a new parliament. Since March, the winners of the election have been wrangling about the composition of the coalition that will choose the new prime minister, the parliament speaker, and other major government posts. The president remains Victor Yushchenko. For weeks and weeks, the three parties that led during the Orange Revolution quarrelled about who will be the prime minister, mainly. Then, a couple of weeks ago, it seemed all was lost and you could almost hear a gasp arise from central and western Ukraine as the president's party announced they were starting to negotiate with the Party of the Regions, the very party the Orange Revolution had struggled against. But today, it seems--a coalition among the old orange team has been formed. Yulia Tymoshenko will be the prime minister and Poroshenko, who is believed to be her primary enemy (and also happens to own a large chocolate factory) will be the speaker of the parliament. The coalition document exists and should be signed Friday. That will give everyone time to go to Germany to watch Ukraine play Tunisia in the World Cup. It also is the last day possible for the coalition to form before constitutionally, the parliament would have to be dissolved. So let the fun begin!! Yulia is back on her throne and as Forbes ranked her the third most powerful woman in the world, let's see what she has up her sleeve this time around. Above is a picture of her party members (she has her own political party that won 124 of the 450 seats in the Ukrainian parliament). She made them all wear white t-shirts with her campaign logo on the first day of parliament. It was a great move, I thought. She sort of shocked the nation with her massive victory.