Anatoly Kinakh ordered Transport Minister Valery Pustovoitenko, Chairman of the State Commission for Military Industrial Complex Volodymyr Horbulin, and twenty-four more government officials to take a leave of absence during their election campaigns, reports Ukrayinski Novyny. The decision has already been approved by the government. According to earlier reports, the leaders of the NDP and Democratic Union announced they were not going to take any leave of absence during their election campaigns.
The government also ordered out the leader of Women For the Future, Valentyna Dovzhenko, who is head of the State Committee for the Issues of Families and Youth, and her two deputies. Earlier, Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko, Minister for Industrial Policy Vasyl Hureyev, Minister for Agrarian Policy Ivan Kyrylenko, and Minister for Emergencies Vasyl Durdynets joined by twenty more candidates were dispatched on leave. Under the government resolution, the duties of temporarily dismissed ministers are to be taken over by ministerial state secretaries and those of agency heads by their first deputies. In January, President Kuchma publicly proposed Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh and some ministers step down during the election campaign. Mr. Kinakh who is running for Verkhovna Rada on the For A United Ukraine ticket refused to leave office, saying he is responsible for running the government and economy.
