POLITICO: Zelenskyy’s lame-duck presidency

The vast corruption scandal unfolding in Ukraine has deeply damaged the country’s image. It has also severely eroded trust in Zelenskyy, turning him into a lame duck at home, POLITICO stresses.

Most damaging to Zelenskyy is that the allegations extend to his most trusted allies: Former business partner Tymur Mindich is said to be at the center of the schemes. And the highly powerful yet unpopular Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak is being accused by adversaries of subverting and impeding the work of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, whose offices uncovered the widespread conspiracy — now called “Mindichgate.”

Domestically, these revelations are already causing a seismic shift in Zelenskyy’s political fortunes, contributing to widespread anger.

Significantly, Zelenskyy came to power on a wave of high-minded rhetoric promising to root out corruption and replace generations of dishonest officials with new faces of integrity. But his inflated assurances have now been punctured by the misrule that’s being revealed each day in plot twists as riveting as a Netflix crime series.

In office for nearly six-and-a-half years now, Zelenskyy was long riding high in the polls.

In recent months, however, the public has started to look for fresh leaders amid growing discontent over his highly centralized, insular and — at times — authoritarian rule. In October, well before the current scandal unfolded, polls showed only one in four Ukrainians wanted Zelenskyy to run for office again once the war ended.

According to opposition Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, who played a crucial role in exposing the corruption scandal, polls as yet unpublished now show Zelenskyy losing a further 40 percent of his support, suggesting his electoral base now stands at around 25 percent, making him a lame-duck president.

So low is Zelenskyy’s support and so damaging the effect of the corruption crisis that, speaking anonymously, individuals who have worked closely with the president and his inner circle have now hinted he may not seek a second term once circumstances permit a vote.

Zelenskyy would be well advised to begin wide-ranging consultations with civic leaders, anti-corruption experts and the patriotic opposition, aiming to create a technocratic government of trusted officials. He also needs to dismantle his highly centralized presidential rule by limiting his own powers to the areas of defense, national security and foreign policy, and by drastically reducing the powers of his team of presidential aides. This could be done by transferring their domestic and economic policy responsibilities to a restructured government and parliament instead.

The fact is, if Zelenskyy doesn’t act, others may do it for him.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs