Zelenskiy reveals more team members

The presidential campaign of Volodymyr Zelenskiy
revealed more members of his political team on Apr. 18, which largely mirrored
the positions of the Cabinet of Ministers. Most notably, the team includes
veteran military expert and anti-Russia hawk Ivan Aparshyn, who could become
defense minister. He has served as the former director of the war policy
department at the Defense Ministry, chief inspector at the Defense Ministry,
and director of the defense and security policy administration at the Cabinet
of Ministers secretariat.

Judicial reform will be addressed by Iryna
Venedyktova. She serves as the director of civil-legal disciplines department
of the school of law at Karazin National University in Kharkiv.

Economics, finances and taxation will be handled by
Danylo Hetmantsev, a professor at Shevchenko University in Kyiv and honorary
president of the Jurimex law firm.

Andriy Gerus, the former director of Concorde Capital
LLC, will handle energy and anti-monopoly issues. Gerus most recently served as
a member of the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission, before
resigning and campaigning against corruption in the energy sphere, most notably
the alleged price gauging in the Rotterdam Plus coal-pricing agreement that the
president allegedly benefited from.

Zenon Zawada: Many of the
announced team members will get positions in the Presidential Administration,
government bureaucracy and maybe even the Cabinet. This team includes many
people with impressive theoretical expertise, but few people with practical
experience. Their success will depend on Zelenskiy’s ability to support them in
their attempts at reforms, especially when their proposals are inevitably
resisted. We can’t say with any certainty to what extent they will be
effective, without knowing what positions they are appointed to and Zelenskiy’s
managerial style as president.

This list gives voters the added confidence to cast
their ballots for Zelenskiy, whose victory on Sunday is all but certain. The
conversation on Monday morning will be: (1) who will Zelenskiy appoint as
foreign and defense ministers, as well as prosecutor general and security
service head, and (2) whether Zelenskiy will dismiss parliament in the next two
weeks, which he said he is considering doing.