Svobodna Dnevnik

[Hadash]

El Correo Internacional

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Mordvania: Jakob Vurnik elected as President of the Republican Council
By: Elena Manstein
Published: Nueva 4, 1585


Eha Grahek-Ternehetär will be the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Mordvania

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After weeks of negotiations, Jakob Vurnik has been appointed President of the Republican Council (head of government), replacing Mordvanian Republican Party leader Bogdan Privsek who had been President of the Republican Council from 1579.

Vurnik, 50, has been leader of the left-republican Republican Social Radical Party for a year. Previously, he had been Voyvode of Slawowo -the fourth largest city of the country- since 1579. Vurnik's experience in national politics is limited to a two-year term as representative in the Chamber of Deputies (Mordvania's Upper House). Despite the Republican Social Radical Party was only the third most voted political party in the Septem elections, Vurnik will be head of government in a coalition government which will included -besides his own political party- Zvezdana Serebryak's Lavika Movement and center-left Radical Democratic Party, enjoying therefore a comfortable majority in the Assembly of Representatives.

The coalition negotations were described as "tough and complicated" by internal sources, as Vurnik was not willing that the Republican Social Radical Party became a minor ally in a United Progressive Socialist Party-led government, as many in the more moderate faction of the left-republican party -of which Vurnik is a nominal member- felt it was the case during Zvezdana Serebryak's tenure as President of the Republican Council (1576-1579). The coalition government has agreed to repeal and review many of the laws passed by Bogdan Privsek's government, including the labour and unemployment laws passed last year, and the education and healthcare reforms, and to suspend already announced but not implemented yet privatizations, as the Lavika Movement (the most voted political party in the last elections, an electoral coalition which includes Serebryak's United Progressive Socialist Party, the Equality Party, and the Mordvanian Communist Party). However, the coalition final agreement has a more center-left reformist agenda, with many Lavika Movement's proposal either postponer or watered down.

Along President of the Republican Council Jakob Vurnik, the national government will have another 6 ministers, while five ministers will be from the Lavika Movement. The Vice-President of the Republican Council will be Bronislawa Smieszawska, the leader of the center-left Radical Democratic Party, which will join the government with only two ministers but in important office such as the Ministry of Public Education and Culture and the Ministry of Culture.

Some analysts have seen the government agreement as an institutional compromise between President Zvezdana Serebryak's Lavika Movement and the Republican Social Radical Party, with the latter having an influential role in domestic politics, with Lavika Movement ministries reduced to the control to some relatively symbolic ministries such as the Ministry of Economic Development, Labour and Social Affairs, Agriculture, or the Ministry of Republican Affairs. Eha Grahek-Ternehetär was announced as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and she will be the United Progressive Socialist Party member with a highest ranking in Vurnik's government. Grahek-Ternehetär, an ethnic Kaljuran, has no diplomatic experience, however, as she was currently a Councillor in the Voyvodeship of Mestarka. Critics of the new coalition government believe that she may be only a nominal appointment, and that President Zvezdana Serebryak will be given full control of the foreign policy of the Republic of Mordvania, in exchange to the appointed of Jakob Vurnik as President of the Republican Council.

Vladislav Kozina, General Secretary of the United Progressive Socialist Party and head candidate of the Lavika Movement in the Septem elections will not join, surprisingly, the coalition government, although it has been confirmed that he will be the Speaker of the Lavika parliamentary group in the Assembly of Representatives. Another leading Lavika Movement member, Stanislava Slokar -leader of the Equality Party- was already elected as Chairman of the Assembly of Representatives.