February 25, 2011 President Yanukovych feted the first anniversary of his election. As it might have been expected pro-presidential and opposition commentators produced starkly different appreciations of his first balance sheet practically on all the points – from economic situation to the state of human rights and democratic development. However, there was one issue where they have demonstrated conspicuous unanimity – rapid and consistent restitution of the executive chain of command, or as it is often called in the post-Soviet space – the “vertical of power”. To reinforce this trend the President of Ukraine has recently introduced in the Parliament two bills aimed at new curtailment of the prerogatives of the Cabinet of Ministers. The latter will be stripped of the right to initiate dismissal of the ministers or create, reorganize, abolish or regulate activities of the state bodies subordinate to the Government, including the key agencies such as the Anti-monopoly Committee, State Property Fund or State Committee on Radio and Television. This might lead to further subordination of the Cabinet of Ministers that is de jure the highest organ of the executive power to the impulses and direct orders emanating from the presidential administration. At least, new legislation envisages that the ministries and other central bodies of power will abide not only by the Constitution and the laws, but also by the President’s directives.

Another development that may have even greater political implications concerns the principles of conduct of the future (2012) parliamentary election. In view of the steady erosion of the popularity of the President and the Party of the Regions, the current ruling class is looking for the tools that would make it possible for him to retain the dominance in the new Verkhovna Rada under all circumstances. Judging by the pronouncement made by President Yanukovych during his “Chat with the Nation” broadcast by major networks on February 25 he and his team are more and more heavily tilting towards organizing 2012 election on the basis of the mixed (party lists and majority vote) or straight majority vote.
This stratagem worked well for the powers that were until 2004 and it served well the Party of the Regions during 2010 local election. The main advantage of any electoral system involving majority vote lies in the fact that under the present Ukrainian conditions members of Parliament victorious in the majority districts will constitute a “pool” from which they most likely will be co-opted in the coalition led by the party of the power. This model also slows down again the process of badly needed structural transformation of the Ukrainian political system by preventing adding stronger and more coherent ideology and organizational principles to the party building mix. 
Elections to the bodies of the local self-government held on October 31 2010 have turned out to be probably the most significant and definitely the most watched out elections of this level in modern Ukrainian history. They were expected to give the answers to the following principal questions: (1) will Ukraine’s undeniable achievements in democratic organization of the electoral process be sustained; (2) will President Yanukovich and Party of the Regions manage to further enlarge their electoral field and practically finalize the process of the concentration of power in their hands; (3) will opposition parties be able to recover from the latest electoral, legislative and institutional defeats and provide a meaningful counterbalance to the Party of the Regions and its allies. 
Situation seems to be relatively clear only regarding the character and conduct of the electoral process. In spite of a number of positive assessments, given largely by the observers representing CIS countries and left and center-left members of the European institutions, majority of domestic and international monitors have concluded that October 31 elections were seriously flawed. Numerous facts of the poor organization of voting on the polling stations, irregularities in the work of the election commissions and use of dirty tricks were reported on the election day. However, the bulk of the so called administrative resource was deployed during the pre-election period, starting with custom made election law favoring the leading political force, and including lack of impartiality in formation and activities of the election commissions, allegations of political pressure against opposition candidates, creation of the “clones” of the well-established political parties. It is quite telling that President of Ukraine had to acknowledge that local elections “had technical drawbacks and were difficult”. Even more important is his declaration as to the “start of the work on the changes in the election legislation” to make it efficient and transparent, and readiness to cooperate with the international community to this end. Yet, it is to be seen to which extent these efforts – notwithstanding personal intentions of the President - are going to be productive. 
On December 10 President Yanukovych has issued Decree that envisages reduction of the number of public servants (by, at least, 30%), reorganization of the Cabinet of Ministers (the number of Ministries will be cut from 20 to 16, Vice-Prime-Ministers will combine their posts with position of the Ministers, professional staff servicing the Cabinet of Ministers will be reduced by 50%) and other central bodies of executive power (they will be cut in numbers from 112 to 63 and will include services, agencies and inspections).
Reductions authorized by the President and streamlining of the bureaucratic apparatus are undoubtedly the steps in the right direction: throughout its modern history Ukraine has seen exponential growth of non-elected public officials – now it has 8.4 official per 1.000 people compared to 4.5 in the USA and 3.5 in Poland. However, it should be noted that the President tasked the Cabinet of Ministers with preparation of the documents that will define the principles of functioning of the central and local bodies of executive power not before, but after promulgation of the Decree. It means that the concept of the administrative reform is still in the making, while it is quite clear that sheer reductions of the number of officials and bodies, no matter how welcome they are, would not suffice. They would not work unless they are accompanied by establishment of the new principles of work of public servants and radical departure from the old ways that are to a large extent rooted in the Soviet traditions. 
This should include draconian measures to combat corruption that was termed by President Yanukovych as “a threat to the national security of the State”. The moment of truth in this respect is to arrive on January 1, 2011 when a package of anti-corruption laws corresponding to international obligations undertaken by Ukraine is expected to come into force. Those laws are still being drafted by the relevant Ukrainian authorities and their final content will speak tons about real determination of the Government to put an end to corrupt practices. 
Until this happens, political analysts are zeroing on the impact of the Cabinet reshuffle on the balance of forces in the highest echelons of Ukrainian power structures. The losers are quite obvious: first and foremost they are coalition partners of the Party of the Regions – People’s Party of Volodymyr Lytvyn, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, and Communists that were stripped of their ministerial positions. They are rapidly loosing their influence, as their votes are no more indispensable for ensuring approval of the President’s legislative agenda. Vice-Prime-Minister Serhiy Tyhipko (leader of the “Strong Ukraine” Party) is another outsider and another victim of Cabinet’s reshuffle – he kept his post, but lost any control over economic sector of the Government, having been relegated to the position of the head of the Ministry of Social Policy. He was tasked to spearhead pension reform which is going to be even less popular than Tax Code reform: in addition to the notoriety acquired by Tyhipko during Tax Code controversy this is likely to wipe his political force out of the Ukrainian political landscape.