KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s prime minister submitted his resignation Friday, days after he was caught on tape saying the country’s president knows nothing about the economy.
In a Facebook post, Oleksiy Honcharuk said that he had given his resignation to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“I took this post to implement the president’s program. He is an example of transparency and decency to me,” he said.
“However, in order to dispel any doubts about our respect and trust for the president, I have written a resignation letter and submitted it to the president for introduction to parliament,” Honcharuk’s statement read.
Earlier this week an audio recording surfaced in which Honcharuk appeared to make disparaging comments about Zelenskiy’s understanding of economics. He called Zelenskiy “a layman” in economics and said the president should be better educated about the national currency.
Honcharuk said that the recording was a compilation of “fragments of recorded government meetings” and blamed unidentified “influential groups” for making it look like he doesn’t respect the president. “It is not true,” the prime minister insisted.
On Thursday, lawmakers from the opposition party Opposition Platform-For Life demanded Honcharuk’s resignation, saying he and his cabinet discredit Ukraine’s president and exacerbate the economic crisis in the country. Members of the ruling Servant of the People party said there were no grounds for Honcharuk to resign.
The Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, must vote on whether to accept the resignation. Zelenskiy’s office confirmed that it had received the letter and said the president would take it under consideration.
Iryna Herashchenko, a lawmaker in the Rada, said that Honcharuk should have submitted his resignation to the parliament and not to the president — otherwise it doesn’t bear any legal consequences and is merely “private political correspondence.”
“In Ukraine, the parliament appoints the Cabinet,” she argued, adding that so far the parliament hasn’t received any documents related to the prime minister’s resignation.
The scandal involving Honcharuk shows that different political forces have started a fight for the position of prime minister, Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank, told The Associated Press.
However, he added that the resignation is unlikely to be accepted: “Zelenskiy doesn’t want to dismiss Honcharuk.”
(c) AP
We have a President who knows nothing about the economy, and a PM who is stupid enough to allow himself to be recorded while criticising the President. This is what happens when idiots are allowed to vote, and Ukraine is full of them. 73% to be precise.
It’s dangerous with all the smart phones, you never know when they are recording. Alina didn’t believe me when I said she was snoring, I proved it was true 😀
I bet that made you Mr Popular. 😂
I was forgiven after 4 weeks, it was nice to sleep in the bedroom again 😀
The dog wouldn’t be happy having to share with you. 😁
I was just kidding, but it took some hours that morning before she talked to me 🙂
Happy, that’s the name of my dog, he’s always happy 😉
Seems Pro-life are the secret backers of the ruling clown now. WTF is going on in UA???
That’s what I was thinking too. The For Death party sure has changed their tune since Zelensky was elected. It appears the president’s policies are favorable to them/Russia.
The putler party are stepping in to help Zel? This is not good. Everything going putler’s way.
On a more hopeful note, they say the darkest hour is before dawn. Hence my avatar. I still hope one day soon to reset it to a lovely rising sun.
Same here. I hope one day i will reset mine to a rainbow. I am the most tolerant person on earth, but i cannot stand muzzlimoidz, they are like people who travelled from 200 B.C. through time and landed in our present time. They must be given a ticket, $50 and a proper farewell. Same goes for putinist invasive shit.
Their ‘religion’ is the template for fascist ideology and needs to go away. However, not all of its adherents are evil. A substantial proportion of them though, yes. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer is one and he’s a great guy. The Ukrainian Tatars also are very good people.
I know a Ukrainian of Chechen antecedents who fights for the Ukraine army and he is a top guy too. Similarly, as we know, only putlerite vatniks are evil; many normal Russians are fine.