Viktor Yanukovych

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MP Viktor Yanukovych Віктор Янукович
Yanukovych at a meeting of the Opposition Government, December 11, 2008.
Prime Minister of Ukraine
In office August 4, 2006 – December 18, 2007
President	Victor Yushchenko
Preceded by	Yuriy Yekhanurov
Succeeded by	Yulia Tymoshenko
In office November 21, 2002 – December 31, 2004
President	Leonid Kuchma
Preceded by	Anatoliy Kinakh
Succeeded by	Mykola Azarov
Governor of Donetsk Oblast
In office May 14, 2007 – November 2002
President	Leonid Kuchma
Preceded by	Volodymyr Sherban
Succeeded by	Anatoliy Blyzniuk
Born	July 9, 1950 (1950-07-09) (age 58) Zhukovka, Yenakiieve, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR
Political party	Party of Regions
Other political affiliations	CPSU (1979/1980[1]-1991)
Spouse	Lyudmilla Yanukovych
Children	2 sons, Olexander and Viktor
Residence	Kiev, Ukraine
Alma mater	Donetsk Polytechnic Institute
Occupation	Politician, professor
Profession	Mechanical engineering
Religion	Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Website	http://www.ya2008.com.ua/eng/

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (Ukrainian: Віктор Федорович Янукович (help·info) Viktor Fedorovyč Janukovyč; Russian: Виктор Фёдорович Янукович) (born on July 9, 1950 in Yenakiieve, Donetsk Oblast) is a Ukrainian politician, the current leader of the influential opposition Party of Regions in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament). Yanukovych is currently one of the leading candidates in the upcoming presidential election, to be contested in January 2010.^[2]

Previously, Viktor Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast (province) 1997 and 2002. Yanukoych also served as the Prime Minister of Ukraine–twice–from November 21, 2002 to December 31, 2004 under President Leonid Kuchma and from August 4, 2006 to December 18, 2007 under current President Viktor Yushchenko, his main opponent in the 2004 presidential election, of which he was declared the runner-up.

Contents 1 Early life and convictions 2 Education and political beginnings 3 Prime Minister from 2002-2004 4 2004 presidential campaign 5 Post-2004 political career 6 Personal life 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life and convictions

Viktor Yanukovych was born in the village of Zhukovka near Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast, at the time part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now independent Ukraine). Yanukovych was born into a working class neighborhood. His father was an ethnic Belarusian locomotive driver originally from Yanuki in Vitsebsk Voblast.^[3] His mother was an ethnic Ukrainian nurse, however she died when Yanukovych was only 2 years old. By the time he was a teenager, he had lost both his parents and was later brought up by his grandmother. Yanukovych regards himself as a Ukrainian.^[4]

Twice, in 1968 and 1970, Yanukovych was convicted and imprisoned for robbery and bodily injury.^[5][6] During the 2004 presidential election, he announced his acquittal in 1978. However, a lack of documentation raised suspicions of forgery.^{[citation needed]}

Georgi Beregovoi, a Soviet astronaut of Ukrainian decent, has long been a patron of Yanukovych. As the then-Soviet member of parliament from the Donbas region, Beregovoi was said to be protecting an unjustly convicted youngster and promoting his future career.

[edit] Education and political beginnings

In 1972, Yanukovych became an electrician in a local bus company and later finished a technicum. In 1980, he graduated (by correspondence) from the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute, with a major in mechanical engineering. Immediately after graduation, Yanukovych was appointed chief manager of a transportation company in Yenakiieve and admitted to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

This appointment marked the start of managerial positions in regional and automotive transport. Yanukovych's political career began when he was appointed as a Vice-Head of Donetsk Oblast Administration in August 1996. On May 14, 1997 he was appointed as the Head of the Administration (i.e. Governor). Between May 1999 and May 2001 he was also the Head of Donetsk Oblast Council.

In 2001, Yanukovych graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Foreign Trade as a Master of International Law. Later, Yanukovych was granted the titles of Doctor of Science and Professor.

[edit] Prime Minister from 2002-2004

President Leonid Kuchma appointed Viktor Yanukovych for the post of Prime Minister following the resignation of Anatoliy Kinakh.^[7] Yanukovych began his term as Prime Minister on November 21, 2002 following a 234-vote confirmation in the Verkhovna Rada.^[8] Under Yanukovych, the government began to pay more attention to reforming the coal industry.

In foreign affairs, Yanukovych's cabinet was considered to be politically close to Russia, although declaring support for Ukrainian membership in the European Union. Although Yanukovych's parliamentary coalition was not supporting Ukrainian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), his cabinet agreed the commission of Ukrainian troops to the Iraq War in support of the United State's War on Terrorism.

[edit] 2004 presidential campaign

In 2004, as the Prime Minister, Yanukovych participated in the controversial Ukrainian presidential election as the Party of Regions candidate. Yanukovych's main base of support emerged from the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, which favor close ties with neighboring Russia. In the first round of voting held on October 31, Yanukovych took second place with 39.3 percent of the votes to opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko with 39.8 percent. Because no candidate passed the 50 percent threshold, a second round of voting was scheduled.

In the second round of the election, Yanukovych was initially declared the winner. However, the legitimacy of the election was questioned by many Ukrainians, international organizations, and foreign governments following allegations of electoral fraud. The second round of the election was subsequently annulled by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, and in the repeated run-off, Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko with 44.2 percent to Yushchenko's 51.9 percent.

After the election, the Ukrainian parliament passed a non-binding motion of no confidence to his government, urging outgoing President Leonid Kuchma to dismiss Yanukovych and appoint a caretaker government. Five days after his electoral defeat, Yanukovych declared his resignation from the post of Prime Minister.

For the election, Yanukovych wrote an autobiography for the Central Election Commission, in which he misspelled his academic degree as "proffessor [sic]." Thereafter, he came to be widely referred to under this nickname in oppositional media and opponents' speeches.

[edit] Post-2004 political career

Following his electoral defeat in 2004, Yanukovych led the Party of Regions in the 2006 parliamentary election. These elections determined the next government's makeup as, due to constitutional changes that came into force on January 1, 2006, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were now appointed by the parliament.

In January 2006, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine started an official investigation of the allegedly false acquittal of the criminal convictions which Yanukovych received in his youth. Yuriy Lutsenko, the head of the ministry, announced that forensic tests proved the forgery of the respective documents (issued in instead of 1978) and initially claimed that lack of the formal acquittal precluded Yanukovych from running for the seat in the 2006 parliamentary election.^[9] However, the latter statement was corrected within days by Lutsenko himself who conceded that the outcome of the investigation into the legality of the Yanukovych's acquittal could not affect his eligibility to run for the parliament seat since the deprivation of his civil rights due to the past convictions would have expired anyway due to the statute of limitations.^[10][11]

Despite having ruled out any post-election deals with the parties headed by either Yushchenko or former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as the animus between himself and the president, Yanukovych and Yushchenko alike were forced to come to terms following the former's electoral victory. In exchange for Yanukovych's assurance that he will not interfere with the pro-Western international ambitions of the President, Yushchenko commissioned Yanukovych to form a government in cooperation with his own Our Ukraine party on August 3, 2006 (several hours after the deadline for doing so expired). The so-called "humanitarian" ministries, as well as the army and the police, remain headed by Yushchenko's allies, but the ministries dealing with the economy and finances, as well as all deputy Prime Ministerial posts, came under Yanukovych's control.

Erstwhile Yushchenko ally and former Prime Minister, Tymoshenko, announced her intention to lead her party into opposition immediately afterwards.^[12]

On May 25, 2007, Viktor Yanukovych was assigned the post of appointed chairman of the Government Chiefs Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States.^[13]

In the parliamentary elections on September 30, 2007, the Party of Regions won 175 out of 450 seats (34.37 percent of the votes) in the Verkhovna Rada. Despite increasing its overall percentage of support compared to the 2006 election (when it was 32.14 percent), the party lost 130,000 votes and 11 parliamentary seats.^[14] After the Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc formed a coalition government on December 18, 2007, the Party of Regions went into the opposition.

In 2009, Yanukovych announced his intent to run for President upcoming presidential election, to be contested in January 2010. He is currently considered one of the leading candidate by different polling sources.^[15]

[edit] Personal life

Viktor Yanukovych is a devoted Orthodox Christian and a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He is married to Lyudmyla Oleksandrivna they have two sons, Oleksandr and Viktor.^[16] He enjoys tennis, hunting and pigeon-breeding. When young he participated in international auto racing competitions. His son, Viktor, is his party's co-member.

[edit] See also

• 2007 Ukrainian political crisis

[edit] References

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2008) (Find sources: Viktor Yanukovych – news, books, scholar)

[edit] External links

• "Viktor Yanukovych. Personal Information Server". ya2008.com.ua. http://www.ya2008.com.ua/eng/. Retrieved on 2009-06-13. 
• "Viktor (yanukovych) on Twitter". Twitter. http://twitter.com/yanukovych. Retrieved on 2009-06-13. 
• "Party of Regions. Official Information Server". Party of Regions. http://www.partyofregions.org.ua/eng/. Retrieved on 2009-06-13. 

Political offices
Preceded by Anatoliy Kinakh	Prime Minister of Ukraine November 21, 2002–December 7, 2004	Succeeded by Mykola Azarov
Preceded by Mykola Azarov	Prime Minister of Ukraine December 28, 2004–January 5, 2005	Succeeded by Mykola Azarov
Preceded by Yuriy Yekhanurov	Prime Minister of Ukraine August 4, 2006–December 18, 2007	Succeeded by Yulia Tymoshenko
Party political offices
Preceded by Volodymyr Semynozhenko	Leader of Party of Regions 2003 – present	Incumbent

v • d • e Prime Ministers of Ukraine Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920) Vsevolod Holubovych • Mykola Sakhno-Ustymovych • Mykola Vasylenko • Fedir Lyzohub • Serhii Gerbel • Volodymyr Chekhivsky • Serhii Ostapenko • Borys Martos • Isaak Mazepa • Vyacheslav Prokopovych • Andriy Livytskyi Ukrainian SSR (1917–1991) Christian Rakovsky • Hryhorii Petrovsky • Christian Rakovsky • Vlas Chubar • Panas Lyubchenko • Mikhail Bondarenko • Nikolay Marchak • Demyan Korotchenko • Leonid Korniyets • Nikita Khrushchev • Demyan Korotchenko • Nikifor Kalchenko • Volodymyr Shcherbytsky • Ivan Kazanets • Volodymyr Shcherbytsky • Aleksandr Lyashko • Vitaliy Masol • Vitold Fokin Ukraine (1991-Present) Vitold Fokin • Valentyn Symonenko* • Leonid Kuchma • Yukhym Zvyahilsky* • Vitaliy Masol • Yevhen Marchuk • Pavlo Lazarenko • Vasyl Durdynets* • Valeriy Pustovoitenko • Viktor Yushchenko • Anatoliy Kinakh • Viktor Yanukovych • Mykola Azarov* • Viktor Yanukovych • Mykola Azarov* • Yulia Tymoshenko • Yuriy Yekhanurov • Viktor Yanukovych • Yulia Tymoshenko * denotes acting

v • d • e Candidates in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election Viktor Yushchenko · Viktor Yanukovych · Oleksandr Moroz · Petro Symonenko · Nataliya Vitrenko · Anatoliy Kinakh · Oleksandr Yakovenko · Oleksandr Omelchenko · Leonid Chernovetskyi · Dmytro Korchynskyy · Andriy Chornovil · Mykola Hrabar · Mykhaylo Brodskyy · Yuriy Zbitnyev · Serhiy Komisarenko · Vasyl Volha · Bohdan Boyko · Oleksandr Rzhavskyy · Mykola Rohozhynskyy · Vladyslav Kryvobokov · Oleksandr Bazylyuk · Ihor Dushyn · Roman Kozak · Volodymyr Nechyporuk · Hryhoriy Chernysh · Vitaliy Kononov