KUCHMA, LEONID

born Aug. 9, 1938, Chaykyne, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. in full Leonid Danylovych Kuchma Ukrainian engineer and politician who became prime minister (199293) and the second president of independent Ukraine (from 1994). His administration supported increased privatization, free trade, and closer ties with Russia. After graduating from Dnipropetrovsk State University in 1960, Kuchma embarked on a career as an engineer, serving as Communist Party secretary (197282) for his company in Dnipropetrovsk. During those years he also retained a top-secret post as a technical manager in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the centre of the Soviet space program. From 1986 to 1992, he served as the general director of Yuzhmash, the world's largest rocket construction firm, in Dnipropetrovsk. In October 1992 Kuchma was appointed prime minister by Leonid M. Kravchuk, Ukraine's first democratically elected president. Kuchma clashed with Kravchuk over economic policies and resigned from the post after one year. In 1993 Kuchma was appointed chairman of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and the following year was a professor at Dnipropetrovsk State University and academician of the Engineering Academy of Ukraine. In the 1994 presidential elections, Kuchma defeated the incumbent Kravchuk, a nationalist, by reaching out to former communists. His popularity steadily declined, however, as his reforms failed to improve the country's economy. In 1999 he was reelected president, though observers alleged voting irregularities.