Serhiy Tihipko position held Minister of Social Policy
Political career after the 2010 presidential election
On 11 February 2010 Tihipko stated that he would agree to become Prime Minister of Ukraine if President Victor Yanukovych offered him the post. On 15 February Yanukovych stated "I do not rule out the candidature of Tihipko. Tihipko is on the list which, in my opinion, will be discussed next week in parliament". On 17 February 2010 Tihipko stated that he had met Yanukovych twice after the election to discuss issues of the country's development and that he had reached no agreement with the parliamentary faction of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc regarding their support of his candidacy for the post of Prime Minister. On 21 February 2010 President Yanukovych offered three candidates for the Prime Minister post: Tihipko, Our Ukraine faction member Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Party of Regions lawmaker Mykola Azarov. On 11 March 2010 Tihipko was elected as one of six deputy Prime Ministers (in charge of economic issues) in the Azarov Government. This cabinet was reshuffled in December 2010; according to Deputy Head of the Situations Modelling Agency Oleksiy Holobutsky this resulted in Tihipko being responsible for all unpopular reforms. He was appointed Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of social policy of Ukraine.In August 2011 Tihipko and Prime Minister (and a Party of Regions leader) Mykola Azarov announced that Strong Ukraine and Party of Regions were going to team up and eventually Strong Ukraine would be merged into POR. Tihipko stated (in October 2011) he would become a Party of Regions member after the negotiations between the parties was concluded. The two parties merged on 17 March 2012. The same day Tihipko was unanimously elected Party of Regions deputy chairman and member of the Party of Regions political council. In the 2012 parliamentary election he was (re)-elected into parliament on the party list of Party of Regions. Tihipko did not return to a ministerial post after and hinted (in December 2012) that he would mainly deal with the ideology of Party of Regions since. He was one of the 36 members of the Party of regions faction (who consisted of 96 deputies) who voted in favour of the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
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