Yevgeny Shevchuk

Yevgeny Shevchuk
Shevchuk in 2016
President of Transnistria
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 December 2011
Prime Minister	Pyotr Stepanov Tatiana Turanskaya Maija Parnas (Acting) Tatiana Turanskaya Maija Parnas (Acting) Pavel Prokudin
Preceded by	Igor Smirnov
Speaker of Parliament
In office 28 December 2005 – 8 July 2009
President	Igor Smirnov
Preceded by	Grigore Mărăcuţă
Succeeded by	Anatoliy Kaminski
Personal details
Born	Yevgeny Vasylovych Shevchuk (1968-06-19) 19 June 1968 Rybnitsa, Soviet Union (now Rîbniţa, Moldova)
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Nina Shtanski
Alma mater	Transnistria State University All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade Ukrainian Agricultural Academy
Religion	Eastern Orthodoxy

Yevgeny Vasylyevich Shevchuk (Russian: Евге́ний Васи́льевич Шевчу́к, tr. Yevgeniy Vasilyevich Shevchuk, Ukrainian: Євге́н Васи́льович Шевчу́к, tr. Yevhen Vasylovych Shevchuk, Moldovan Cyrillic: Евгений Васильевичи Шевчук, Romanian: Evgheni Vasilievici Șevciuk; born 19 June 1968) is the President of the internationally unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic, better known as Transnistria. He was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of Transnistria from 2000 until his election as president in 2011. Furthermore, he was speaker of Pridnestrovian Supreme Soviet from 2005 to 2009, and the leader of the opposition party Renewal until 2010. Shevchuk is an ethnic Ukrainian and a citizen of both Transnistria and Russia.^[1]

Born in Rybnitsa, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union (now Rîbniţa, Transnistria, Moldova), Yevgeny Shevchuk is a lawyer who has worked in government and private business. His biography profile describes him as "social democratic technocrat with a European outlook, and a man of profound democratic beliefs". As part of the minority opposition in parliament prior to December 2005, he spearheaded a reform drive by his party to introduce changes to Transnistria's electoral code. Among the changes were a requirement that purely technical qualifications be used as the basis for selecting polling station chairmen and a rule prohibiting state-owned media outlets (radio, TV, newspapers, etc.) from publishing results of polls and forecasts related to elections, so as to not influence free voter choice. This was reported in the United States State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2005.^[2]

In a 2005 report the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe referred to Shevchuk in the context of democratic reform, noting that Transnistria "is moving towards more pluralism" and highlighted "the Transnistrian parliament's own initiatives on the reform of the political system" which were spearheaded by Shevchuk's bloc. After that the European Parliament banned Shevchuk from entry to the EU countries.^[3]

On 22 July 2009, Shevchuk resigned from his post as speaker of parliament.^[4] Anatoliy Kaminski, who was vice-speaker under Shevchuk and is vice chairman of Shevchuk's Renewal party, was the only nominee to succeed him. Mikhail Burla, leader of Renewal and Chairman of the Committee for economic policy, budget and finance, was elected as the new vice-speaker. Shevchuk cited a controversial attempt to revise the county's constitution by president Igor Smirnov as the main reason for his resignation.^[5]

In December 2011, Shevchuk was elected president of Transnistria. He won the first round of the presidential elections on 11 December, polling higher than either the sitting president Igor Smirnov or the Kremlin-backed Supreme Soviet chairman Anatoliy Kaminski.^[6] He then won the second round of voting with over 75% support on 25 December.^[7] He was inaugurated on 30 December 2011.^[8]

On May 9, 2016, Shevchuk was quoted as stating that "I am sure that sooner or later we will be a united country with Russia."^[9]

External links

• (Russian) Биография

References