Controversial Ukraine party receives top positions in new government

Scott Greer
Daily Caller
February 28, 2014

Image: Oleh Tyahnybok (Wiki Commons).

As the fires die down from the turmoil in Kiev, the controversial Svoboda Party is set to reap the benefits of the new government arrangement.

The party, which has been accused of promoting anti-Semitism and xenophobia, will take control of not one, but three ministries in the interim government.

These posts include the deputy prime minister and the heads of the agriculture and environmental ministries. In addition to these positions, a Svoboda lawmaker was appointed the new prosecutor general in the interim government.

Svoboda’s leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, is one of the leading opposition figures during the recent crisis in Ukraine and met with Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain when the former presidential candidate visited the tumultuous country last December.

Tyahnybok and other party leaders have been accused of making numerous anti-Semitic and racist remarks. In 2004, Tyahnybok urged his party in a televised speech  to fight “the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine.”

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