Ukraine's prime minister to step down on Wednesday

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Europe

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman on Monday said he was resigning after comedian Volodymyr Zelensky was inaugurated as president.

"I've decided to tender my resignation on Wednesday after a government meeting," he told reporters.

Earlier Monday Zelensky, 41, was sworn in as Ukraine's sixth president and used his inaugural speech to announce the dissolution of parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, as he called for snap elections.

He urged ministers to also resign, despite Ukrainian law obliging the government to do so only after parliamentary elections.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) poses for a photo with a supporter as he walks to his Presidential Office after his inauguration ceremony in the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, May 20, 2019. /VCG Photo

"The government resigns before the newly elected Verkhovna Rada, not before the newly elected president," said Groysman, who has been prime minister since April 2016, to underscore that he did not have to resign but chose to.

He said that he had offered to work under Zelensky but added that "the president chose a different path."

Groysman, also 41, praised the work of his government over the past three years. "I am not ashamed of what we were able to do," he said. "The country is in good shape."

Zelensky does not command majority support in the current parliament. He has wrangled with hostile lawmakers whom he accused of deliberately delaying his inauguration and called them "petty crooks."

The comedian without any political experience was sworn in as Ukraine's youngest post-Soviet president a month after scoring a landslide victory over the incumbent Petro Poroshenko with a campaign capitalizing on widespread discontent with the political establishment.

The next parliamentary polls in Ukraine had been scheduled for October.

Source(s): AFP