I read with interest this week the piece by Melinda Haring from the Atlantic Council looking at possible contenders for the next prime minister of Ukraine, assuming a win by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party and other pro-Western reform parties at this weekend’s parliamentary elections. Haring highlighted her top “reform” five, including:
* former economy minister, and currently head of the state arms procurement agency, Ukroboronprom, Aivaras Abromavicius;
* Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev;
* Naftogaz chief financial officer Yuriy Vitrenko;
* former deputy National Bank of Ukraine Governor Vladyslav Rashkovan, currently serving as Ukraine’s International Monetary Fund director; and
* head of the National Security Council, and former finance minister, Alex Danylyuk.
As Haring pointed out, all of these would make excellent potential prime ministers, and all would be disrupters in different ways which is exactly what Ukraine needs. And all are also proven reformers.
I guess all five might fall foul of the proposed lustration law being proposed by some in the Zelensky team but I assume G7 pressure to drop this bill will eventually prove successful – otherwise, there will be no one left with any experience in government to actually run the country. Perhaps this is what the instigators of this bill want, but this would not really be a prudent way to actually run a country.
Both Abromavicius and Danylyuk have already committed to the Zelensky cause, declaring their support weeks prior to the presidential election and both were rewarded with positions in the administration when Zelensky assumed power in May.
As Haring has highlighted Danylyuk is the only one of the five “musketeers” to have declared his interest in the job of prime minister. I have no doubt he will do a great job, albeit, in his battle to secure the post of national security chief in the aftermath of the presidential election, he may well have ruffled too many feathers inside the Zelensky team. He would though have strong backing from G7 ambassadors and likely now the White House. He seems to have had quality time with key officials from U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s administration, including John Bolton on recent visits to D.C. But I worry that he lacks real champions in the Zelensky team, and unlikely in the new Rada either. That said he knows how government works (or doesn’t) in Ukraine, the back corridors of power in Kyiv, which is really important. He knows all the tricks played by Ukraine’s elites and I am sure has plans already how to counter these or plays these to the new administration’s advantage. He would make a very good servant of the people, albeit that is perhaps why some amongst Ukraine’s elites would seek to block him.
Abromavicius also would be an excellent choice. He is very personable, a real team player and seems to have made strong allegiances with those already in the Zelensky team. He has a strong record in business, particularly in the really important agricultural sector, and is well respected by the IMF and other international donors and creditors. I initially thought his Lithuanian heritage would count against him, but actually, it might be a positive advantage from Zelensky’s perspective as it will play to the line of a clean broom sweeping out old elites. And foreign birth never counted against other former ministers, including Natalie Jaresko, who served as finance minister from 2014-2016.
As with Jaresko, it could even be a positive in terms of relations with foreign donors and creditors. And I think it would send a very positive message to investors that Ukraine is open for international business, and Zelensky hires technocrats from wherever. And in a scenario where perhaps some of the bigger beasts in the Zelensky team – Danylyuk and chief of staff Andriy Bohdan – are rucking up against each other in the bid to secure the post of prime minister, Abromavicius might just sneak in as the compromise candidate from within the Zelensky team.
The two potential candidates from Naftogaz bring different things to the table. Kobolyev delivered a huge (seismic) victory for Ukraine over Gazprom at the Stockholm tribunal, but the furor over his own subsequent remuneration will surely rule him out, as might his sometimes prickly character. This character has served him well in battling against Gazprom but a more deft and diplomatic approach might be needed in the Ukrainian political context, and perhaps in dealing with international creditors/donors.
Vitrenko has the charm and wit, and perhaps his own family connections to old school socialists/communists might prove useful, albeit his own politics are quite the reverse. But again I sense the Naftogaz remuneration issue will just be too high a hurdle to climb in this instance. Best keep the Naftogaz team doing what they do best – outmaneuvering Gazprom, and ensuring gas supplies to and through Ukraine with risks therein brewing on the gas transit front for later this year.
This then leaves the dark horse in my mind, Rashkovan.
Rashkovan has kept his powder dry in Washington, D.C., after leaving the NBU having served his term to great effect. True, he failed to follow Abromavicius and Danylyuk in committing early to the Zelensky cause, but he is known to be close to Svyatoslav Vakarchuk.
Now in a scenario, which actually seems most likely, where Servant of the People does well in early elections but falls short of a majority in the Rada, it would need to seek coalition partners. Having ruled out a coalition with the pro-Russian Opposition Platform for Life, and Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party, Zelensky would have the choice of allying either with Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party or Vakarchuk’s Golos or Voice party. An alliance with Vakarchuk would seem closer to Zelensky’s mission statement of giving Ukraine a fresh start, given Voice chose new faces to run as Rada deputies and is pushing a strong pro-reform political agenda. It seems likely that Vakarchuk would back a coalition with Zelensky but the price might be the formation of a government of professionals or technocrats, and therein Rashkovan would seem to fit the bill, as a very well respected technocrat who delivered transformational reform at the NBU. Interestingly his now intimate knowledge of the IMF would make him an ideal candidate to lead the reconfiguration of the IMF program.
Rashkovan is an innovative, multidimensional strategic thinker – a brilliant communicator, whose reform credentials are beyond doubt. Key in Ukraine in compromising a cabinet will be picking the good from the bad, or very bad a has too often been the case, and Rashkovan (but also Danylyuk and Abromavicius to be fair) knows this intimately. Like Danylyuk, Rashkovan also earned his reform spurs in the battle over the original nationalization of PrivatBank, which took place in December 2016. So how better for Zelensky to distance himself finally, from Kolomoisky, in nominating someone like Rashkovan or Danylyuk for that matter as prime minster. Likewise by overlooking Daniliuk and Rashkovan for Andriy Bohdan, for example, the opposite impressions might be left, that Privatbank is off limits.
But perhaps Rashkovan’s known close ties to Vakarchuk could also be his weakness if Zelensky wants his choice of the prime minister to come from within his own political grouping. And there are some signals therein that Zelensky would argue that the largest party in parliament should also nominate the prime minster – albeit that view might be coming from others interested in the post of prime minister from with Servant of the People, rather than Zelensky himself.
And then there is Bohdan, Zelensky’s close associate and currently the head of the presidential administration. I think there is little doubt that Zelensky’s own choice, if free, for prime minister would be Bohdan. But Bohdan’s past track record as a lawyer to numerous oligarchs, including Ihor Kolomoisky, would surely rule him out for the top job as it would raise just too many question marks about Kolomoisky’s influence over Zelensky and the future of the PrivatBank issue. Surely Zelensky wants to send a message to business of a fresh start and I am not sure that appointing Bohdan as prime minister would do that. All that said, by most accounts, Bohdan has done a decent job as head of the presidential administration and has exceptional management and organizational skills. So never say never.
Beyond the new reform parties, it is always possible that Zelensky could seek to ally with Fatherland to secure his parliamentary majority, but that would surely mean ceding the post of the prime minister to Yulia Tymoshenko. While possible, I just think this would be too much of a return to the past for Zelensky, when the more obvious alliance would be with Vakarchuk and Voice. I also think the markets and the G7 ambassadors would need a lot of convincing of the merits of a return to the era of Tymoshenko.
Another possibility is that other parties surprise and secure parliamentary representation – perhaps incumbent Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, or ex-Security Service of Ukraine chief Ihor Smeshko’s party, Strength and Honour. Smeshko seems more likely, while Groysman had his time in office and seems to have failed to inspire the electorate. I also think that markets and the IMF, G7 would be less than inspired by a second term for Groysman given that relations with the fund, in particular, were difficult during this time.
There is also then the unthinkable – that Zelensky is indeed a “project” of the oligarchs, and that we wake up on July 22, or soon after to see some backroom deal revealed between Kolomoisky, Medvedchuk and ultimately Vladimir Putin, and that some throwback to the Viktor Yanukovych era dawns with a coalition between Servant of the People and the Opposition Platform for Life, with Medvedchuk nominated as prime minister, as part of some greater deal to bring peace in the east, and some oligarchic carve-up of Ukraine.
Kolomoisky gets PrivatBank back, et al., wave goodbye to the IMF program, but I am sure that Moscow would write a big cheque for this eventuality $12 billion left from the $14 billion financing promised to former Yanukovych by Putin in 2013). I am sure you can get the drift. And yet, while I am sure some people might imagine this, I think if there are really instigators of such a plot, I think they will have misread the determination of the people of Ukraine as now demonstrated by two popular revolutions. People would be quickly on the streets, and Zelensky’s time in office would surely be numbered. I just don’t see any such scenario, and from Zelensky’s actions in office thus far since April, he seems genuine in maintaining Ukraine’s Western orientation.
