Following months of political turmoil, Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday approved Volodymyr Groysman as the country’s new prime minister and confirmed a new cabinet.
Groysman, 38, is a loyalist of President Petro Poroshenko, and replaces the deeply unpopular Arensiy Yatsenyuk as government leader.
His appointment was backed by 257 MPs, topping the minimum threshold of 226 votes.
Groysman, who had served as parliamentary speaker, promised to speed up economic reforms and tackle the pervasive corruption that has dismayed both the country’s foreign backers and Ukrainians hoping for a better government after the country’s 2014 revolution.
“A new government, as well as previous ones, will steadily keep a course to European integration,” Poroshenko said in parliament, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
However, some of the previous cabinet’s leading reformers like Natalie Jaresko, the former finance minister, won’t be part of the new administration.
Most of the new ministers are closely allied to Groysman and to Poroshenko.
“As expected, the new government cannot be called reformist,” tweeted Anders Aslund, an economist who has closely followed the reform process ion the former Soviet Union. “Poroshenko got his desired control & Groisman got his favorites.”
Ukraine’s government crisis has endangered a crucial $17.5 billion loan program from the International Monetary Fund, as well as billions more in other international aid.
The country is also grappling with a Russian-backed armed rebellion in the east of the country, and has failed in its efforts to reverse Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk had sparred for control of Ukraine, but the new government will put the full responsibility for the country’s progress on the president.
Ukraine’s latest government crisis was sparked by the February resignation of reformist economy minister Aivaras Abromavičius, who left the government citing corruption and the slow pace of reforms.
Yatsenyuk, whose bloc had support of one percent of voters, according to opinion polls, then survived a parliamentary vote of confidence despite Poroshenko’s public call for him to leave. Kiev has since been consumed with political intrigue and speculation over whether a coalition could be cobbled together in parliament to support a new government, or whether the country would have to call a snap election.