He is taking over after months of tensions between Yatsenyuk and Parliament, including the governing coalition and President Petro Poroshenko.
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The newly elected leader received a warm greeting in parliament from Petro Poroshenko. Key officials who have garnered accolades in the West-such as U.S.-born Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has been credited with overhauling the country’s finances amid a major economic downturn-won’t be part of the new cabinet.
That is because his victory depended on votes from political parties other than Ukraine’s two largest blocs, under Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk.
But some economists worry that the mild-mannered Groysman may lack the toughness needed to stand up to a handful of tycoons who have dominated Ukrainian politics and made the former Soviet republic a breeding ground for graft. “In particular I would like to highlight three threats – corruption, ineffective governance and populism, which do not pose less of a threat than the enemy in eastern Ukraine”, Hroysman said, referring to the Russia-backed separatist rising.
The Ukrainian government has been paralysed since the failed motion because Yatsenyuk’s days seemed numbered and intense backroom battles raged over who would fill the new cabinet’s seats.
She helped to negotiate a deal to restructure Ukraine’s $15 billion debt and has been negotiating a bailout with the International Monetary Fund, but lost her post later Thursday when Groysman announced his new Cabinet.
Meanwhile, documents leaked from a prominent Panamanian law firm earlier this month suggested that Poroshenko had opened an offshore tax haven as some of the worst fighting was raging in east Ukraine in 2014 against pro-Moscow rebels.
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Mr. Groysman placed stronger ties with the European Union at the heart of his programme for government, while President Poroshenko told the Rada that the new administration would “pursue a relentless course toward European integration”. He urged the government to speed up the pace of reform, saying that Ukraine “has no time to lose”.
