|
BBC Monitoring Service Research, UK, Apr 26, 2004
|
Serhiy Tyhypko
|
Serhiy Tyhypko, the 44-year old chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine,
has frequently been identified as a possible contender for the presidency,
and he has on occasion expressed his willingness to run in the October 2004
elections.
However, with opinion polls suggesting that only around 2-3 per cent of the
electorate would support his presidential bid, Tyhypko has been giving
signals that he will be concentrating instead on building up the party he
leads, Working Ukraine, ahead of the 2006 parliamentary elections.
But Tyhypko appears to have left his options open. Though he said on 15
April that he had been one of those who suggested the nomination Prime
Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the parliament-government coalition's single
candidate for the presidency, he later said that this choice was only
provisional and Working Ukraine would not formally endorse Yanukovych's
candidacy until the end of May.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in a small village in Moldova, Tyhypko graduated from the
Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute. After military service, Tyhypko
devoted himself to activity in the communist youth organization (Komsomol).
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, he had risen to first secretary of
the Dnipropetrovsk regional Komsomol committee.
|
Serhiy Tyhypko
|
To this day, Tyhypko tends to be associated with the Privat Group. However,
he insists that he no longer has any connection with the group. In fact,
Tyhypko was on paper only a minor shareholder in the group, where he served
as a hired manager. The main owner of Privat Group is now recognized to be
Ihor Kolomoyskyy.
In 1997, Tyhypko was appointed deputy prime minister for economic issues in
the government of Pavlo Lazarenko, who also had roots in Dnipropetrovsk. He
continued in this post under Lazarenko's successor, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.
During this period, the youthful and vigorous Tyhypko represented the "face
of Ukrainian reforms", negotiating with the IMF and western governments, and
wooing foreign investors. Meanwhile, he continued to be seen as Privat's
lobbyist in Kiev.
When the widely respected former National Bank governor, Viktor Yushchenko,
was appointed prime minister in late 1999, Tyhypko was moved to the post of
economics minister in an apparent demotion.
Tyhypko soon clashed with Yushchenko's deputy prime minister for fuel and
energy, Yulia Tymoshenko, over her energy market reforms, which were said
to harm the interests of Privat and other major players. Yushchenko backed
Tymoshenko, and Tyhypko quit the government in Spring 2000.
Tyhypko was soon elected to parliament from a first-past-the-post
constituency. He joined Working Ukraine, a party with links to
Dnipropetrovsk business, in particular, the influential industrialist Viktor
Pinchuk, later to become the president's son-in-law. Tyhypko was elected
chairman by the party congress in November 2000. Despite its ties to big
business, Tyhypko describes Working Ukraine as being "left of centre".
Tyhypko became a prominent critic of the Yushchenko government in
parliament, and he was one of the driving forces behind the no-confidence
vote in which leftist and centrist forces joined to bring it down in April
2001. Tyhypko was widely tipped for the vacant post of prime minister, but
the job eventually went to Anatoliy Kinakh.
Labour Ukraine entered parliament in the March 2002 elections as part of the
pro-presidential For a United Ukraine bloc and subsequently formed a faction
with Kinakh's Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, Tyhypko had set up the TAS (the initials of his daughter Tyhypko
Anna Serhiyivna) conglomerate to control his financial and industrial
holdings, many of which appeared to have been transferred from the Privat
Group.
CURRENT POST
Tyhypko controversially replaced Volodymyr Stelmakh as National Bank
governor in December 2002 after Prime Minister Kinakh severely criticized
the bank's activity. The pro-presidential majority removed Stelmakh at the
third attempt in a vote by ballot papers after the opposition blocked the
electronic voting system.
The move was widely seen as part of a deal to distribute government
posts among the factions making up the parliament majority and was
criticized by the opposition as an attempt to politicize the banking system.
In response to suggestions of a possible conflict of interest, Tyhypko
pledged to disinvest from the TAS group and leave Working Ukraine.
However, he remains party chairman and there have been no reports
that he has sold his stake in TAS.
The nattily-dressed Tyhypko is regularly seen on TV, and he gained extra
public visibility earlier this year when he appeared in a much-aired public
service broadcast expounding the virtues of the new 20 hryvnya bill.
After the failure of the parliament majority and left wing factions to
approve the political reform bill on 8 April, serious political problems
have emerged for Working Ukraine. The Party of Industrialists and
Entreprenuers left the joint parliament faction and Working Ukraine itself
lost a number of prominent members including Pinchuk. Pinchuk insisted,
however, that his departure was not the result of conflict with Tyhypko, who
he insisted remained a friend.
Tyhypko is a French speaker and reportedly a chevalier of the Legion of
Honour. His hobbies include weightlifting. Like his predecessor at the
National Bank, Viktor Yushchenko, he is an amateur beekeeper.
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC
USE ONLY |
|
back
