Groysman is gone. Should we say thank you?

Groysman is gone. Should we say thank you?

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has tendered his resignation. During today’s cabinet meeting he assured colleagues and journalists that the corresponding statement would be in parliament by evening.

Groysman’s dismissal is a consequence of being offended by the new president. In his inauguration speech on Monday Volodymyr Zelensky fairly harshly called on government officials to leave their posts. The head of state reproached Cabinet members for "shocking tariffs, humiliating wages and pensions, painful prices, non-existent jobs, healthcare whose improvement is talked about mostly by those who have never stayed with a child in an ordinary hospital," as well as "mythical roads that are repaired only in someone’s vivid imagination." A hint at Groysman’s relentless PR on the "road issue." But Zelensky didn’t stop there. He quoted former U.S. President Ronald Reagan: "Government does not solve our problems; government is the problem." "You can take a sheet of paper, a pen, and vacate your positions for those who will think about future generations, not the next elections. I think people will appreciate that," the new president concluded.

Those words shocked Groysman so much that while sitting in the government box at the ceremony he lost control of his facial expressions. His outrage reached such a level that the same day the prime minister convened an urgent briefing and announced he was leaving. He planned to officially announce the resignation at the next (that is, today’s) cabinet meeting. In fact, that is what happened today.

According to Glavcom’s sources, Groysman did not expect such a devastating assessment of his work from Zelensky. On 13 May he had a conversation with Zelensky after which he sincerely believed he could calmly serve until the parliamentary elections and establish communication with the new president. At that time Volodymyr Borysovych described in friendly terms that the meeting with Zelensky "left absolutely normal impressions. And then we will see how further interaction develops." Zelensky’s statements during the inauguration shattered all hopes. They were perceived by Groysman and his closest associates as a public humiliation.

According to Glavcom, immediately after the inauguration ceremony Poro-shenko, Groysman, Parubiy, Yatsenyuk and a few other influential deputies gathered in the speaker’s office. Outraged by the behavior and words of the new president, they all advised Groysman to resign and fully shift responsibility for the country onto Zelensky and his team. In the context of early elections, which the president promised to hold a few minutes earlier, those gathered in Parubiy’s office believed the government’s collapse should play against Zelensky and his party.

The prime minister did not waste time: within a few hours he announced his decision and warned the new head of state about serious challenges.

"When the president spoke in parliament and called on the government to resign, he probably confirmed that he and his team have a plan to respond in the future to those challenges that have not gone away. We have a significant national debt that was not created by us, but we managed to reduce it from 80% of GDP to 60% of GDP," Groysman boasted and warned Zelensky. He then called for quickly submitting a candidate for the new prime minister to parliament.

Interestingly, not all members of the Cabinet agreed with their boss’s belligerent rhetoric. Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze publicly criticized her boss. "I was categorically against the resignation of the government. I am for responsibility and continuity of reforms, European and Euro-Atlantic integration. I am for a new quality of politics in accordance with European principles, not for the constant destruction of previous achievements by subsequent governments," she wrote on her Facebook page and noted she is ready to assist newly elected president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Groysman intends to continue fighting for power. As Glavcom reported, he is creating a political party with which he plans to run in the parliamentary elections. Hints about the emergence of Groysman’s independent project appeared long before the recent events.

Volodymyr Borysovych is an ambitious man. It was ambition that repeatedly pushed him into conflict with the former head of state Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko once appointed his fellow countryman from Vinnytsia to head the government to get rid of the too-independent Arseniy Yatsenyuk. According to sources close to him, Poroshenko believed Groysman would unquestioningly heed his wishes out of gratitude. However, it turned out Groysman had his own opinions that did not always match the then president’s views. Moreover, the head of the Cabinet began to distance himself from both the president and his political force and to build an independent political career.

Pollsters are not sure Groysman will be able to get his party into parliament in two months. His task is complicated by the fact that deputies did not lower the electoral threshold, which remains at 5%. There is still a likelihood that parliament will continue to block all initiatives of the new president and simply refuse to let Groysman and his ministers go their separate ways.

There are grounds for such forecasts, given how spectacularly all of Zelensky’s initiatives failed in the Verkhovna Rada today. If deputies do vote to dismiss the head of the Cabinet, the entire government will automatically resign. Ministers will remain in acting capacity until the next Cabinet is appointed. Glavcom asked representatives of all factions in the Verkhovna Rada to assess Groysman’s performance—specifically, whether they are ready to say "thank you" to the fourteenth Ukrainian prime minister, name his main achievement and his biggest mistake.

Serhiy Vysotsky, People’s Front: "Despite the war, Ukraine’s economy is growing"

Groysman’s main achievement is decentralization. Unfortunately it is not fully completed and has slim chances of being finished. I would name his main loss the war with Naftogaz and the conflict with Kobaliev, which brought no positive results to anyone.

I assess the prospects of the new political force quite well. I think it will overcome the threshold; we shall see. We should thank Groysman for decentralization, for qualified ministers in their posts, for supporting Ulana Suprun, and for the fact that Groysman’s government finished its term during economic growth. After all, in Ukraine, despite the war, the economy is growing with a balanced budget and a proper program.

There was a lot of positive. Volodymyr Borysovych showed himself to be a fairly capable manager.

Mykhailo Papiyev, Opposition Bloc: "You can thank him for the resignation statement"

Groysman’s greatest "achievement" and his biggest negative is probably Koboliev’s bonus of $7 million, which he sent to his mother in the United States so it would not be confiscated in Ukraine (chairman of the management board of the National Joint-Stock Company (NJSC) Naftogaz of Ukraine Andriy Koboliev received a bonus of $7,9 million for Naftogaz’s victory over Gazprom in the Stockholm court). And this happens not in a private company—Apple or Huawei, which have some achievements—but in a state corporation that, while raising tariffs tenfold, awards such bonuses to its managers, and the Cabinet remains silent and does not react.

This is a real "achievement." And I think our pensioners warmly welcomed this achievement with their pensions of 1400 hryvnias. But it is also a failure, because people perceived it absolutely negatively, which we saw in the presidential election when Zelensky received 73% of the vote.

Groysman’s party’s success will depend on what the electoral threshold will be. It is hard to imagine that Groysman’s political force can overcome 5%. There are still 10 political forces of the same orientation on his field. And if he abandons the country (when we have an IMF mission visit, when the highest payments are due on previous loans) and, following the principle "the worse, the better," slams the door and leaves, then I think he will not even overcome 3%.

You can thank him for writing the resignation statement.

Ihor Mosiychuk, Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko: "Zelensky should personally run the government"

It is hard for me to name any achievements of this turncoat. I generally believe that with the prime minister’s resignation and the dissolution of parliament, Volodymyr Zelensky should personally take responsibility and run the government, at least during this transitional period.

In the coordinates in which this government operated, it could not be remembered for anything good. Because the government was only partially run by Groysman, and for the most part was run by Bankova. That is why I called it the Poroshenko-Groysman government. It was the government of the Poroshenko era—an era of cynicism, lies, looting. Groysman was always in the shadow. A few times he tried to step out of Poroshenko’s shadow, but remained in it to the end, even during the last elections.

Groysman is remembered primarily for his toothlessness in negotiations with the IMF, which led to tariff increases, Koboliev leading Naftogaz, and corruption scandals. And for the fact that Ukrainians cannot feel the results of Groysman’s government in their pockets or refrigerators.

Personally I cannot thank Groysman, particularly regarding the illegal appointment of Ulana Suprun, who serves as acting minister of health. There are individual ministers who worked, put in effort and at least tried to do something. Groysman is not among them.

Nataliya Novak, Petro Poroshenko Bloc: "He is the gravedigger of parliamentarism"

"His main achievement is that he completely destroyed parliamentarism. First he undermined it as speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, then moved to the Cabinet and with his handouts to majoritarian MPs continued to further dismantle it. He is the gravedigger of parliamentarism.

Of achievements—perhaps the attempt to do something in decentralization. But it was carried out awkwardly; changes to the Constitution were not made. The minuses in his work far outweigh the pluses.

Groysman’s new party is hopeless. I do not think we should thank Groysman.

Oleh Bereziuk, Self Reliance Association: "Groysman looked like Poroshenko’s son"

"He was one of the people who was at the origins of decentralization. And he is remembered for having destroyed that budgetary decentralization with his own hands, robbing local budgets. That is a historical fact. And this is not my opinion but the opinion of the majority of mayors who do not understand why he 'changed shoes' so quickly, as is fashionable to say now. From someone who wanted results and increased local budgets to someone who did the exact opposite.

On the positive side: Groysman is one of the few who stood behind the healthcare reform. I believe that without his support it would have been impossible to reform primary care. So we have one plus, one minus.

I don’t know his prospects. He really has a quality managerial nature, but is very dependent on oligarchic circles, which he surrounded himself with or which surrounded him. When Groysman last spoke in parliament, I looked at him and he looked like Petro Oleksiyovych’s older son, practically indistinguishable. That does not give him a quality prospect, although he is still a very young man.

You should say "thank you" to any person. But we do not yet understand all the results of this activity. For politicians and managers of this level a true "thank you" is heard only after a few years. Remember Balcerowicz, Poland’s prime minister. When he was doing his reforms, he was hated, but after 10 years it turned out they worked. We started reforms that worked, and it seems the government did everything to stop them from working. We will see.

Viktor Bondar, Revival Group: "The team drove Groysman into a pit"

Ask ordinary people whether they are happy with this leadership or not. I think the answer will be simple. Drive through the regions and look at the roads, infrastructure, social support. Why are people fleeing Ukraine?

This is a Cabinet of dilettantes: they recruited ministers who had nothing to do with their fields. For three years they were afraid to come to the Rada to report. 'Watchers,' schemes, looting and unprofessionalism. Loss of people, teams, professionals and an absolute lack of any logic in the actions of each minister and the government as a whole. Groysman himself is a fairly intelligent person, but the team that surrounded him drove him into a pit.

Let people evaluate Groysman’s new political force in elections, but I think, out of old memory and past merits, people will vote for it 1-2%.

Groysman himself is a decent person, well-mannered, experienced. But a prime minister’s performance is not judged by personal qualities. The team he went with for three years is 85% unsuitable people. If you are prime minister you should have taken a stand, shown character and insisted on forming a normal and powerful government. You should have worked more with the Verkhovna Rada, listened to deputies, met with them, had direct contacts, and not forgotten to fulfill promises.

Viktor Chumak, non-affiliated: "There’s a good road to Vinnytsia. That’s probably all the achievements"

Groysman certainly did not leave a positive impression on me. Maybe for ensuring a relatively stable hryvnia, since we did not feel sharp exchange rate fluctuations. But when Groysman says the economy grew for 12 months in a row, that is a lie. Growth of 3% per year is basically stagnation at the level of global growth. The Groysman government said it was building roads. Sorry, last night I drove from Kharkiv to Kyiv—500 km of road, of which 300 km are completely destroyed. And this is the route between two capitals! I have to go to Odesa on Sunday. I shudder thinking how to do it. But from Zhytomyr to Vinnytsia there is a good road. That’s probably all the achievements.

The problem with our politicians is that they don’t feel the era’s break. Practically everyone involved in state politics, including Groysman, soon won’t be perceived as politicians with a future. A completely different model is being sought: digitalization of politics, digitalization of relations. What we are talking about now will become archaic. New people are coming. The era of forty-year-olds is beginning; they come to power and do everything differently. Groysman, unfortunately, came with Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko. No matter how he tries, he will be associated with him. And Poroshenko is an unsuccessful case of Ukrainian politics.

Still, you can say "thank you" because the man worked and we were not shaken by government crises. But the situation is such that the president exerted enormous influence on state government policy. What the government did was carried out under the influence of presidential lobby groups. It is wrong to blame Volodymyr Borysovych for all the government’s sins because half the people in the Cabinet were oriented toward Poroshenko. Groysman was a hostage of this system. He did not want to break it and became part of it.

Ihor Lutsenko, member of Batkivshchyna faction: "His prospects lie exclusively within a criminal proceeding"

As an example of this government’s ineffectiveness: they failed to do anything with the Hostynnyi Dvir (read more here: Hostynnyi Dvir returned to state ownership continues to crumble), even though the court gave them the right last spring. They dithered all year, did nothing, and now it’s unclear what will happen next. That attracts attention; I have no further recollections of Groysman. I personally went to a reception, explained something to him in the Verkhovna Rada chamber. Like talking to a wall.

Groysman’s political future depends on who will be the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. His prospects can only be seen within the framework of a criminal proceeding.

I personally do not understand his political orientation. Maybe it will be voiced soon, or maybe not. For now he is remembered for going on a diet in the last couple of months and slimming down before the elections. I have no other political associations with Groysman.

You can thank him only sarcastically.

Nataliya Sokorchuk, Yuliya Kozlova, for Glavcom