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Vladimir LitvinPolitician, Chairman of the People's Party of Ukraine
Date of Birth: 28.04.1956
Country:  Ukraine |
Content:
Biography of Vladimir Litvin
Vladimir Mikhailovich Litvin, a politician and the leader of the People's Party of Ukraine, was born on April 28, 1956, in the village of Sloboda-Romanovskaya in the Novograd-Volynsky district of the Zhytomyr region, Ukrainian SSR.
Early Career
Litvin graduated with honors from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev in 1978. Immediately after graduation, he became an assistant to the rector. He continued his studies at the university's graduate school, defended his candidate dissertation, and worked as a lecturer and senior lecturer at the Department of Modern History. He later became an associate professor at the Faculty of History.
Political Career
In 1986, Litvin became the head of the Department in the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education of the Ukrainian SSR. He then moved to work at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CC CPU), starting as a lecturer, then a consultant, and eventually becoming an assistant to the secretary of CC CPU.
After the events of August 1991 and the banning of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), Litvin found himself unemployed. He returned to the university and worked as a night security guard for a commercial firm. In August 1994, Litvin became an assistant to the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, whom he had met in 1993.
In 1995, Litvin defended his doctoral dissertation. In November 1995, he was appointed Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, and in September 1996, he became the First Deputy and the head of the group of assistants and advisers to the President of Ukraine.
In 1997, Litvin became a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU). In November 1999, after Kuchma's re-election, Litvin was appointed head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.
Accusations and Political Positions
In late 2000, audio recordings made by a former presidential bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko, were made public. These recordings allegedly contained conversations between Litvin, Kuchma, and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuriy Kravchenko, discussing the possibility of eliminating opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
In September 2002, Melnychenko appealed to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Svyatoslav Piskun, requesting the initiation of a criminal case against Kuchma, Litvin, and Kravchenko, but his request was denied.
In early 2002, Litvin topped the electoral list of the "For a United Ukraine!" bloc, which received 11.8% of the votes in the parliamentary elections. In April 2002, Litvin became a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament), and in May of the same year, he was elected as the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, receiving the necessary minimum of 226 votes from the deputies.
During the presidential campaign in 2004, Litvin played a decisive role in peacefully resolving the conflict between the candidates Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko. In November 2004, he organized an extraordinary session of the parliament, where the results of the second round of elections were declared invalid, leading to a revote or the third round of elections.
In December 2004, Litvin was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. In June 2006, he became the leader of the People's Agrarian Party, which was later renamed to the People's Party of Ukraine in February 2005.
After the parliamentary elections in March 2006, Litvin led the People's Bloc Litvin "We," which positioned itself as a unifying force amidst political divisions in Ukraine. However, the bloc only received 2.44% of the votes, failing to overcome the electoral barrier. Following the elections, the People's Party of Ukraine effectively became an extra-parliamentary opposition.
In April 2006, Litvin resigned as the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, and in May, he was elected as the Vice-President of the NASU. In September 2006, Litvin announced that he would not compete for the position of President of the NASU, and the People's Party would participate in the 2009 presidential campaign, as well as other political campaigns.
