Zelensky gets his prime minister and calls to 'do the impossible

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opened the first session of the new Parliament on Thursday with no difficulty in appointing his junior candidate, a junior lawyer, as prime minister and calling on MPs to "do the utmost" to transform the country. 'Ukraine.

"You have every chance to enter the history textbooks as a Parliament that has done the impossible, which has implemented all that could not be done for 28 years" of independence, launched Mr. Zelensky, without tie, true to his casual style.

Cautious of the "fights" that are not uncommon in the Chamber, he called on the deputies to do "meticulous work for the good of the Ukrainian people". He threatened, otherwise, to dissolve the assembly in one year.

"I already know that dissolving the Parliament is not so scary," joked Zelensky, who dissolved the old legislature immediately after his inauguration in May and who obtained an absolute majority after early legislative elections. July.

– End the corruption –

Barely installed on Thursday, MPs voted in favor of Zelensky's candidate for prime minister, a former lawyer with three months of experience in power. Oleksii Goncharuk was appointed at an unprecedented speed for Ukraine, where the negotiations to form a government sometimes lasted months.

A total of 290 deputies, against a required minimum of 226, supported his nomination.

"We have more than 10 million people living below the poverty line (…) We have a war in the east, and we have corruption, we must end it and we will do it. new government will not fly, "promised Mr. Goncharuk, to the applause of the hemicycle.

Appointed deputy chief of the presidential administration in charge of economic affairs in May, he previously headed for four years the research center BRDO in Kiev, funded by the European Union, whose activities aim to improve the business climate in Ukraine .

Its meteoric rise is in the context of a massive arrival of new faces in power in Ukraine, after the election of former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky on the promise to "break the system".

"A new generation has come to power," Goncharuk told parliamentarians.

– Unprecedented room for maneuvering –

Parliamentarians now plan to work "up to two or three in the morning" to appoint ministers and other key officials.

In the evening, they appointed Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, a respected career diplomat, who promised to work for the integration of Ukraine into the European Union and NATO.

Other key positions, a former Defense Ministry advisor for reforms, Andriy Zagorodniouk, became defense minister, while a childhood friend of President Ivan Bakanov was appointed chief of security services (SBU) after leading this interim structure as early as May.

Among the outgoing government members, two will keep their posts: the Minister of Finance Oksana Markarova, respected by international organizations, and the powerful Minister of the Interior Arsen Avakov, much criticized by human rights defenders.

Ukraine's youngest President at age 41, Zelensky turned his country's politics upside down, dominated for decades by elites who grew up in the USSR and were deemed corrupt and ineffective.

He has an unprecedented margin of maneuver with a loyal parliament and government, his fledgling People's Servicio party made up of political novices, having obtained 254 of the 450 seats of deputies.

Mr. Zelensky's ambition is to put an end to the deadly war with the pro-Russian separatists in the east, which has left nearly 13,000 people dead and nearly a million and a half displaced as well as "returning" the peninsula to Ukraine. Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014 and eradicate the ubiquitous corruption.