Cabinet reloaded: changes on critical points expected

UKRAINE - In Brief 05 Mar 2020 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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The Honcharuk Cabinet was dismissed yesterday on March 4. What was the real reason behind this dismissal – we can only guess. Honcharuk was weak Premier, apparently, not ready to face the challenges he was expected to deal with. But his dismissal has some other reasons, we believe. Most likely sliding ratings of the authorities and Honcharuk's disrespectful talk about Zelenskiy were the points behind this decision. Nevertheless, despite Honcharuk's infantilism his Cabinet was looking in right direction. Denys Shmyhal, ex-official of Lviv regional administration and manager at DTEK of Rinat Akhmetov, was appointed new Prime-Minister. His Cabinet appeared to be a mix of some unknown people, “old guard” personalities from Yanukovytch times and several survivors from Honcharuk. The most remarkable for us are Arsen Avakov, Minister of Interior, and Ihor Umanskiy, Finance Minister. Mr. Avakov has already survived five government rotations, which deserves respect. We wrote many times that Avakov is much more dangerous than Ihor Kolomoyskiy. As we see Minister of Interior has increased his influence and even was considered to be promoted to Vice-Prime Minister. But many civil society players harshly criticized Avakov in the Cabinet, which probably prevented promotion. Nevertheless, we see that Zelenskiy considers Avakov as an efficient Minister and heavily relies on his advice. We should clearly understand that Avakov used to leverage law enforcement for his personal needs and we can hardly expect reforms in this area until the person stays in power. But Zelenskiy will need protection from mounting threats, and Avakov is the one who can provide efficient protection. New Minist...