Parliament votes in caretaker until May elections

Protesters paint on the KGB officers monument in Kiev. Photo / AP

Ukraine's Parliament chose a post-revolutionary president yesterday as politicians tried to assemble a caretaker Cabinet under the critical gaze of thousands of protesters who have become the new power in the land.

A visceral suspicion of any politician with a record in office saw Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Prime Minister, rule herself out of contention to retake her old job.

Tymoshenko made an emotional speech in Independence Square after being released from prison and she is expected to run for president in the election in May. Oleksandr Turchynov, formerly the Speaker, will be the country's acting head of state until a presidential election on May 25, but MPs argued over ministerial posts in an interim administration.

A senior member of an opposition party suggested that Parliament's choices should be read out to the crowd in Independence Square, adding that any name that attracted a resounding "no" should be rejected.

Real power in Kiev has moved down the hill from Parliament and the presidency to the demonstrators in the square, which all Ukrainians know as the "Maidan".

After seeing comrades die in their scores to topple Viktor Yanukovych, the protesters have become a force that no politician can safely ignore.

And the crowds want a new generation of leaders to transform Ukraine into a genuine European democracy.

Tymoshenko's speech on Sunday, delivered from a wheelchair because of ill health, received warm - but not rapturous - applause. Yesterday, the first anti-Tymoshenko banners appeared among the crowds.

"I'm against her coming back to power," said Iryna Gorbatuk, a 25-year-old protester. "We want her to be healthy, but we don't want her back in office. She was part of the Government and she had a lot of chances to change the system and she failed."

Tymoshenko is sullied not only by her time as prime minister, but also by her immense personal wealth and a notorious gas deal she signed in 2009 that was seen as favouring Russia.

Katerina Kononiuk, a 25-year-old protester, said this transaction had proved Tymoshenko was a "traitor to Ukraine".

Although they deposed a president after a bloody three-month struggle, the crowds in the Maidan do not feel victorious. They believe that Yanukovych's downfall was only a first step towards achieving their vision of a new Ukraine. They fear established politicians such as Tymoshenko are poised to steal their victory from them.

"We got rid of the head of the iceberg, but everyone who is in politics today was part of this corrupted system, of this bandit system," added Kononiuk.

"They know how to survive in it and how to get rich from it. We need new people to come to power."

Parliament managed to appoint interim leaders of the interior and defence ministries along with the SBU, the Ukrainian secret service.

Although Turchynov, a close political ally of Tymoshenko, assumed office as acting president, the wrangling over the choice of prime minister continued.

The likely contenders are Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former foreign minister who leads Tymoshenko's bloc in Parliament, and Petro Poroshenko, a former economy minister and a businessman, who made a fortune selling chocolate.Telegraph Group Ltd