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to be setting a course in the opposite direct - towards and in favour of the forces of populism and state capture,” Tim Ash, Senior Sovereign Strategist at BlueBay Asset Management said in a note to clients.
Even Ukraine’s supporters have finally turned on Zelenskiy, after six years of blindly rebuffing any criticism of the leadership, playing up any reform initiative, but blatantly ignoring any corruption or negative news.
Smolii quit citing “systemic political pressure” but he later clarified in an interview that h e didn’t jump; he was pushed. Smolii met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on June 30 where the president sacked him, Smolii told Sonya Koshkina and Oleg Bazar, the editors-in-chief of LB.ua in a long interview.
"The president did not say,” Enough! I'm tired of you, let's write a statement.” But I understood from the context [of the conversation at the June 31 meeting] that I had to leave. We are all adults. It was clear. So, I asked him directly. He answered in the affirmative,” Smolii said.
First, the deputy governor of the NBU, Oleh Churiy, failed to secure the backing of the NBU Council and the President for a second term in office. This means two of the six member board are being replaced now by Zelenskiy. He only needs to force one other board member out to have full control over policy given the casting vote of the governor.
“Given the campaign of intimidation being waged against NBU board members it is easy to imagine that one or all of the remaining four NBU board members will eventually opt to resign,” says Ash.
And that campaign is already in full swing. Smolii has already been suffering from continuous harassment by “demonstrators” who were literally camping out in front of his house. This morning he woke up to find funeral wreaths propped against the fence around his garden. former NBU governor Valeriya Gontareva finally quit after a coffin containing a mannequin made up to look like her was delieved to the front door of the NBU. She toldbne IntelliNews i n an exclusive interview that she feared for her life and explicitly blamed Kolomoisky for the intimidation.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) opened a new front the day before posting a message on its Facebook page warning that any former NBU official found criticising policy could be charged with treason.
This appears aimed specifically at former governor Gontareva who argued yesterday in an interview that the IMF should stop disbursements to Ukraine - and even get Ukraine to repay credits disbursed - as Zelenskiy has gone back on prior commitments to defend NBU independence, argues Ash.
“The IMF and the G7 countries have said lots of nice things about ‘respecting central bank independence’, but that has had no impact. When the central bank governor resigns, you can’t just issue these statements,” she says. “To defend the reforms we made, the IMF should announce that it is not making any further payments to Ukraine unless Zelenskiy appoints a governor who will safeguard reforms,” Gontareva told centralbanking.com in a polemical interview.
8 UKRAINE Country Report August 2020 www.intellinews.com
