Ukraine president gives PM second chance

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday allowed Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk to keep his job after the leak of an embarrassing audio recording prompted Honcharuk to submit his resignation.

In a carefully choreographed video of the two men sitting at a desk that was released on Friday evening, in which Honcharuk was mostly silent, Zelenskiy said he would give Honcharuk and his government a chance.

Honcharuk had offered to quit after an audio recording suggested he had criticised the president, though in earlier comments to Reuters he also indicated that he might end up keeping his job.

A recording of a man discussing Zelenskiy’s purported lack of knowledge of economics was circulated on messaging channels this week, apparently at a meeting of Honcharuk, the finance minister and the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in December.

Zelenskiy is a former comic actor who had no political experience when he swept to power in an election last year on the back of public anger over high-level corruption.

Zelenskiy and the public had loaned Honcharuk their trust, he said to Honcharuk, adding: “you have not yet repaid this loan to our society.”

Read more via Reuters

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