Political Biography
Yuriy Lutsenko gained public fame as one of the leaders of the Ukraine without Kuchma! campaign, which followed the Cassette Scandal of 2000. He was also one of the "faces of Orange revolution". Lutsenko was a long-term member (since 1991) of the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU), prior to his appointment to the executive branch he was people’s deputy in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) since February 2002. Lutsenko belonged to so-called "right wing" of SPU which takes a pro-European position akin to social democratic parties in the rest of Europe, rather than a post-Soviet conservative socialism.
As a Minister, Lutsenko refused to run in the 2006 parliamentary election on his party list. However, he has been running for both the Kiev City Council and Rivne Oblast Council simultaneously in the lists of Socialist Party – "to make the point", as he explained. Having won these seats, Lutsenko resigned from both in favor of his Minister's position as the Constitution of Ukraine prohibits occupying the positions in the legislative and executive branches of the government at the same time.
Read more about this topic: Yuriy Lutsenko
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or biography:
“Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It has always been put down in the book as a state that might be carried by a close and careful and perfect organization and a great deal of—[from audience: “soap”Ma reference to purchased votes, the word being followed by laughter].
I see reporters here, and therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion, and distributed tracts and political documents all through the country.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)