The first Tymoshenko Government was appointed on February 4, 2005, by 373 Parliamentarians of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament). It was supported (also by) opposition factions' Parliamentarians, including three Communists, 18 Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) members, 46 Regions faction members.
On September 8, 2005, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko sacked the entire government after both Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko and presidential chief of staff Oleksandr Zinchenko spoke out that the government was "riddled with corruption".
Increased salaries, pensions, scholarships;
Fulfilled one of the paragraphs of social program from Yushchenko's election agenda on support for new families: in 2005 a social aid for a newborn child was increased 12 times;
âÂÂContraband stopâ campaign was launched. The campaign was accompanied by eradication of shadow schemes in business;
Call for nationalization and re-privatization of more than 3000 enterprises. Eventually the government nationalized and then re-privatized country's biggest metallurgical plant âÂÂKryvorizhstalâÂÂ. In October 2005 it was sold for $4 billion to a new owner, which was an impressive amount compared to $8.5 billion received by the government from privatization between 1991 and 2004;
On June 16, 2005, president Viktor Yushchenko, speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn and Yulia Tymoshenko signed a memorandum on guarantees of ownership rights and ensuring lawfulness for their implementation. According to Yushchenko, âÂÂUkrainian government brought murky privatization practice to the endâÂÂ;
In AprilâÂÂMay 2005 Ukraine faced so called âÂÂmeat, sugar and petrol crisesâ when prices for the abovementioned products went up by 30-50% over a couple of weeks. These crises allegedly resulted from a cartel conspiracy and it took Tymoshenko's government about 1.5 months to get the prices down to the initial level with the help of âÂÂgoods interventionâ mechanism;
The meat crisis was caused by increased demand for meat as a result of increased salaries. Tymoshenko's government lifted duties on imported meat, which dropped the speculative prices Tymoshenko's political opponents (Yushchenko and Yanukovych) kept criticizing her for importing âÂÂlow quality meatâÂÂ. At that time Tymoshenko's government made a decision to increase production of poultry, which eventually made Ukraine a poultry exporter.
The sugar and petrol crises were caused by a âÂÂcartel conspiracyâ which increased prices for the abovementioned goods by 30-50%. Tymoshenko's government organized importation of cane sugar and dropped duties on imported oil products. In a couple of months the prices stabilized. In 2006 the Anti-Monopoly Committee, who investigated the âÂÂsugar crisisâ issued a conclusion which said that it was a cartel monopoly with a participation of Petro Poroshenko, then-head of the National Council of Security and Defense.
In May 2005, at the height of the petrol crisis, Viktor Yushchenko publicly, sharply criticized Tymoshenko for âÂÂpressure on oil tradersâÂÂ.