Oleksiy Honcharuk


Oleksiy Valeriyovych Honcharuk is a Ukrainian politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 29 August 2019 to 4 March 2020.
Before this appointment Honcharuk was a lawyer and since 28 May 2019 Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Zelensky.

Biography

Early life and career

Honcharuk was born in 1984 in Horodnia, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, a small town near tripoint of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Honcharuk's father Valeriy was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine. In the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Honcharuk's father tried to win a parliamentary seat for this party, but he never received a mandate. The following year he was killed in an accident.
Honcharuk was a student of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management from 2001 to 2006. In 2006 he obtained his Ph.D. in law at the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. From 2005, Honcharuk worked as a lawyer and heads of law departments of various companies. Honcharuk's last position as a lawyer was being a lead partner at a company that specializes in real estate development. In 2009 Honcharuk became Chairman of the NGO's "Association for Assistance to Affected Investors" and "Union of Investors of Ukraine".
In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Honcharuk unsuccessfully tried to get a parliamentary seat for the party. After the election, he became an adviser to ecology minister Ihor Shevchenko and First Vice Premier Stepan Kubiv. In 2015 Minister for Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavičius, with the financial support of Canada and the European Union, created the BRDO office that deals with the simplification of the system of state regulation in the relations between the state and business. The competition for the BRDO leader was won by Honcharuk. In April 2016, Honcharuk met Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development, Stepan Kubiv, who invited the BRDO leader to become his advisor pro bono.
At the end of 2018, Honcharuk co-created the right-liberal NGO "", which was supposed to grow into a political party. The party was not deemed ready enough to take part in the snap July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Prime Minister of Ukraine

On 28 May 2019 Honcharuk was appointed Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. In this position he was responsible for the block of economic development and continuation of reforms.
According to Ukrayinska Pravda, in the spring of 2019, Monobank co-founder Dmytro Dubilet introduced Honcharuk to Andriy Bohdan "who brought him to Bankova". First aide to President Zelensky confirmed that Bohdan was responsible for the appointment of Honcharuk in the presidential administration. But Dubilet and the Zelensky's campaign staff denied this and claim they met Honcharuk in 2018 in his capacity as BRDO chairman.
On August 27, international media reported that Zelensky would propose that Parliament appoint Honcharuk to the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine. On 29 August he was officially nominated for the post of Prime Minister and the same day the parliament easily approved Honcharuk with 290 deputies voting in favor of his appointment.
Honcharuk is the youngest Prime Minister of Ukraine since he was 35 at the time of his appointment. Before him, the youngest one was Volodymyr Groysman who took the post at 38 and was succeeded by Honcharuk.
On 17 January 2020, Honcharuk submitted a letter of resignation to the President of Ukraine after recordings emerged on the internet in which a man with a voice similar to Honcharuk's criticises Zelensky's knowledge of economics, as well as his own knowledge of the subject and competence. Zelenskiy, however, refused to accept the resignation, saying "Now is not the time to undermine the state, economically or politically”. According to the Ukrainian Constitution Zelensky could not have dismissed Honcharuk since only the Ukrainian Parliament is entitled to discharge the Prime Minister. According to Chairman of Parliament Dmytro Razumkov Honcharuk did not request Parliament to dismiss him. In early 2020, domestic media outlets reported that Zelenskiy had lost confidence in Honcharuk due to the slow speed at which his government was carrying out reforms. This is expected to culminate in a vote in the Verkhovna Rada on March 4 in which Zelenskiy will propose sweeping changes to the government, including the appointment of a new prime minister.
On 4 March 2020, the Honcharuk government was replaced by the Shmyhal Government.

Income

For 2019, he declared a salary of UAH 315,369, revenues from entrepreneurship of UAH 315,369, cash of UAH 100,0006 USD 31,000, EUR 10,000, a 2007 Jaguar X-Type car and a 2004 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER car .