Yatsenyuk: Ukraine’s unlikely protest firebrand offered PM post

Ukraine’s Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an opposition leader who was offered the prime minister’s job on Saturday, is a bespectacled ex-lawyer who has taken a hands-on role in the escalating protests.

The 39-year-old Yatsenyuk did not immediately respond to the presidential offer although he did not turn it down in a speech to protesters in which he vowed to continue pressing for opposition demands.

Not previously seen as a tough politician, Yatsenyuk has taken an increasingly stubborn line in fiery speeches on Independence Square, the epicentre of the protest movement.

The Focus news weekly said Yatsenyuk has been trying to shed his image of an “intellectual banker” and has been using the square to stage a sort of “primary” for the role of chief opposition leader.

In one impassioned address this month, he gave President Viktor Yanukovych an ultimatum to solve the crisis and said he was ready to die for the cause.

“If he does not go down that path then we will go forward together and if it means a bullet to the head, then it is a bullet to the head,” he said.

While Yatsenyuk has earned the respect of some protesters, his support is far from certain among the most militant activists.

He is also seen by some as a rival as much as ally of fellow opposition leader and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who currently enjoys greater popularity among potential voters.

Yatsenyuk’s political views are broadly liberal and he is in favour of European Union membership for Ukraine. He has called for reforms to root out deep-seated corruption in the country.

If he accepts the nomination and it is approved by parliament, Yatsenyuk would be one of Europe’s youngest government chiefs although his authority would be severely limited because of the sweeping powers currently held by the presidency.

That too could change, however, as one of the concessions held out by Yanukovych on Saturday was a discussion on possible constitutional changes that would boost the role of the prime minister.

Originally from Chernivtsi in western Ukraine, a major stronghold for the opposition, Yatsenyuk began his political career in 2001 as economy minister of the pro-Russia Crimean peninsula.

Following the “Orange Revolution” in 2004, Yatsenyuk began pushing a more pro-Western agenda and became a close ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who is now in prison for abuse of power.

Then president Viktor Yushchenko made him foreign minister in 2007 and Yatsenyuk became a compromise figure when a personal conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko began to spiral out of control.

Unusually for government officials in post-Soviet countries, Yatsenyuk travelled on regular passenger flights while he was foreign minister.

Yatsenyuk and Tymoshenko themselves later had a bitter falling-out, although they have since reconciled and he is the leader of the “Fatherland” party of which she was also a founder.

Fatherland is Ukraine’s second biggest party after the ruling Party of Regions.

Yatsenyuk is a member of Ukraine’s parliament and was once its speaker.

Running for president in 2010, he finished in fourth place with only seven percent of the vote and accused Tymoshenko of being in cahoots with the winner Yanukovych.

However he declined an offer to head Yanukovych’s government, instead joining ranks with Tymoshenko’s supporters in 2012 and merging his party with hers.

Yatsenyuk was born on May 22, 1974, into a family of professors at Chernivtsi University and graduated in 1996.

Between 1992 and 1997 he was president of Yurek Ltd, a law firm, and later worked at Aval bank in Kiev.

He is married and has two daughters.