Recently, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed three deputy heads of the Presidential Office: Yulia Sokolovska, Oleksiy Kuleba and Mykola Tochytskyi. Kuleba and Tochytskyi became new ministers: the former took the post of Vice Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine – Minister of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine, and the latter became the head of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine.
Instead, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk will work in Bankova Street and become Deputy Head of the Presidential Office. Komersant ukrainskyi
decided to look into the reason for such rotations and how the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, is connected to the change of personnel in the OB.
zelenskyy’s “5-6 effective managers”
At the end of last year, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his team consisted of only five or six people. Despite the fact that the President did not specify who exactly he considered to be members of his team, experts and political analysts are sure of one thing – it definitely includes Andriy Yermak, whose position is only getting stronger, says Viktor Bobyrenko, head of the Bureau of Policy Analysis.
“I am absolutely sure that all the recent personnel rotations have strengthened Yermak’s position in the Presidential Office. Yermak has really proved that Zelenskyy is the king, but he has the real power,” Viktor Bobyrenko said.
In his opinion, Oleksiy Kuleba was dismissed from the Presidential Office and sent to the post of Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine – Minister of Community and Territorial Development for a reason.
“Probably, Oleksiy Kuleba was redirected from the Presidential Administration to the ministerial post in order to increase his (Yermak’s – ed.) influence and possibly control financial flows more clearly,” the expert believes and emphasises that everything in the country is currently controlled from the Presidential Administration.
“No minister has had, and now will definitely not have, the ability to manage the industry independently, as he or she wishes. There are only “5-6 effective managers”, as Zelensky said, who control both the Government and the Verkhovna Rada, which are simply a screen and a decoration of Ukraine’s facade democracy,” he stressed.
Also, according to Viktor Bobyrenko, Dmytro Kuleba was removed from the post of Foreign Minister in order to make the Government more controlled.
“He (Dmytro Kuleba – ed.) was written off because his career took off before Yermak. Although Kuleba made almost all of his visits abroad together with Yermak, it was clear to everyone that Yermak was in charge.
Now, Kuleba has been pushed aside and foreign policy will be led by Andriy Sybiga, Yermak’s man. I believe that this will not lead to anything good, because “5-6 managers” cannot decide the entire fate of the country,” the expert added.
Relations between the Government, Parliament and the President’s Office
In an exclusive commentary to , Oleksiy Koshel, Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, agreed with the view that the Presidential Office is currently taking over maximum control over the executive branch.
“I have nothing against the Office of the President having normal relations with the Cabinet of Ministers, and listening to the President, especially during the war. But such a serious lack of independence of the Government actually constrains its activities, does not allow it to take drastic steps, and deprives it of independence,” he said.
According to Oleksiy Koshel, one of the key problems in the work of the Cabinet of Ministers is the problem of relations with the Verkhovna Rada.
“The rotations in the Cabinet of Ministers that have taken place will not change anything. If we look at the number of government bills supported during the full-scale invasion, we see that the parliament supports about 30% of government bills. That is, ⅔ of them are either dead weight or simply rejected,” said Koshel. In his opinion, this trend is a very serious problem for the state.
“In general, I have the impression that the Government and the Parliament are now working not as one, but as enemies. It has come to the point where one of the parliamentary committees has made an informal decision that they will not consider any draft law authored by a particular ministry until the minister himself appears at least once at a parliamentary meeting,” Koshel added, stressing that the authorities are ignoring this problem.
“I have the impression that either no one understands this problem or simply does not want to see it. We have a deep governance crisis during the war, which is not the first year. And as a result of this crisis, the government is not effective enough,” Koshel said.
Why Iryna Vereshchuk joined the Presidential Office
According to Viktor Bobyrenko, the main criterion for the Presidential Office to recruit to its team is personal loyalty to the President. And Iryna Vereshchuk has demonstrated it very well.
“Iryna Vereshchuk has proved her usefulness to the team. Because their main criterion for a position is personal loyalty. So Vereshchuk is personally loyal to both Zelensky and Yermak. Therefore, Vereshchuk will not be written off in any case, even if she is just a passing figure. Vereshchuk is probably being prepared to become the new “talking head” instead of Mariana Bezuhla,” the expert speculated.
Oleksiy Koshel agrees with this thesis. He says that as deputy head of the Presidential Office, Vereshchuk will not be a key leader in strategic decision-making.
“In her previous position, the Ukrainian people remembered her more on the level of emotions: the forced evacuation of children, calls for citizens to leave certain regions, etc. I do not think she will be a key decision-maker on Bankova Street either. Obviously, she will play the same role as she did as Deputy Prime Minister. I think she will be another media personality on Bankova Street,” summarised Koshel.
Author – Alyona Kaplina