President Volodymyr Zelensky on May 7 appointed ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as the head of the Executive Reform Committee, a presidential advisory body, according to a decree published on the president’s web site.
The newly-created Executive Reform Committee is the executive branch of the presidential National Reform Council. The Executive Reform Committee presents the National Reform Council’s decisions in its relations with other government bodies, municipalities, political parties, civil society groups and mass media, according to the decree.
IT businessman Oleksandr Olshansky was appointed as Saakashvili’s deputy.
On April 22, Zelensky offered Saakashvili the job of deputy prime minister for reforms. However, the Verkhovna Rada failed to muster enough votes for Saakashvili’s appointment and did not consider the issue at its meetings on April 24 and April 30. Ukrainian media reported that lawmakers from Zelensky’s faction said that Saakashvili met with the faction but didn’t convince enough of its members to support his candidacy.
He was also opposed by allies of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, as well as by the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party.
Previously, Saakashvili said his task was to push through deregulation and tax cuts to help Ukraine cope with the current economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Saakashvili was the president of Georgia in 2004 to 2013 and implemented major free-market and law enforcement reforms in the country. He left Georgia in 2013, and the new government opened criminal cases against him in what he sees as a political reprisal.
Later Saakashvili served as the governor of Odesa Oblast under Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. However, he fell out with Poroshenko and was subsequently stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship in what he believes to be a political repression.
In 2017 the Prosecutor General’s Office arrested and charged Saakashvili with allegedly receiving money from tycoon Serhiy Kurchenko to finance protests against Poroshenko. He was released from custody by Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol, who ruled that Saakashvili’s arrest without a court warrant was unlawful.
Ex-prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulik, who was in charge of the case, told the Kyiv Post that Poroshenko had interfered in the Saakashvili case. Poroshenko’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Ukrainian authorities then deported Saakashvili without a court order in 2018. However, Ukrainian law explicitly bans deportation without a court order.
The ex-Georgian president returned to Ukraine in 2019, when Zelensky restored his Ukrainian citizenship.
In February 2020, the State Investigation Bureau charged former border guards with Saakashvili’s unlawful deportation.
