section_path: Presidency
section_name: Presidency
paragraph_text: Presidency
  
  Zelenskyy was inaugurated on 20 May 2019. Various foreign officials attended the ceremony in Ukraine's parliament (Verkhovna Rada), including Salome Zourabichvili (Georgia), Kersti Kaljulaid (Estonia), Raimonds Vējonis (Latvia), Dalia Grybauskaitė (Lithuania), János Áder (Hungary), Maroš Šefčovič (EU), and Rick Perry (United States). Zelenskyy is the first Jewish president of Ukraine; with Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister, Ukraine became the first country other than Israel to simultaneously have a Jewish head of state and head of government.
  
  In his inaugural address, Zelenskyy dissolved the then Ukrainian parliament and called for early parliamentary elections (which had originally been scheduled for October of that year). One of the parliamentary coalition members, the People's Front, opposed the move and withdrew from the ruling coalition.
  
  On 28 May, Zelenskyy restored the Ukrainian citizenship of Mikheil Saakashvili.
  
  Zelenskyy's first major proposal to change the electoral system from a plurality voting system to proportional representation with closed party lists was strongly rejected by the Ukrainian parliament, who believed that closed lists would lead to more corruption in government. Zelenskyy had earlier called for the introduction of open list election ballots, such as during his inauguration speech, but his proposal would have held the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election with closed lists based on the reasoning that the 60-day term to the snap election did not "leave any chances for the introduction of this system."
  
  In addition, on 6 June, lawmakers refused to include Zelenskyy's key initiative on reintroducing criminal liability for illegal enrichment in the parliament's agenda, and instead included a similar bill proposed by a group of deputies. In June 2019 it was announced that the president's third major initiative, which seeks to remove immunity from lawmakers, diplomats and judges, would be submitted after the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election. This initiative was completed on 3 September, when the new parliament passed a bill stripping lawmakers of legal immunity, delivering Zelenskyy a legislative victory by fulfilling one of his key campaign promises.
  
  On 8 July, Zelenskyy ordered the cancellation of the annual Kyiv Independence Day Parade on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, citing costs. Despite this, Zelenskyy highlighted that the day would "honor heroes" on Independence Day, however, the "format will be new." He also proposed to spend the money that would have been used to finance the parade on veterans.
  
  In 2020, Zelenskyy's party proposed reforms to Ukraine's media laws with the intent to increase competition and loosen the dominance of Ukrainian oligarchs on television and radio broadcasters. Critics said it risked increasing media censorship in Ukraine because its clause of criminal responsibility for the distribution of disinformation could be abused.
  
  In January 2020, Zelenskyy took a trip to Oman that was not published on his official schedule, appearing to combine a personal holiday with government business. His office said Zelenskyy paid for the entire trip himself. Nevertheless, he was criticized for a lack of transparency and critics pointed out he had once criticized his predecessor Poroshenko for taking an undisclosed vacation in the Maldives.
  
  In January 2021, parliament passed a bill updating and reforming Ukraine's referendum laws, which Ukraine's Constitutional Court had declared unconstitutional in 2018. Fixing the referendum law had been one of Zelenskyy's campaign promises.
  
  In June 2021, Zelenskyy submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a bill creating a public registry of Ukraine's oligarchs, banning them from participating in privatizations of state-owned companies and forbidding them from contributing financially to politicians. Opposition party leaders supported Zelenskyy's goal of reducing oligarchs' influence on politics in Ukraine but were critical of his approach, saying the public register would be both dangerous, as it concentrated power in the president; and ineffective, since oligarchs were merely a "symbol" of more deeply-rooted corruption. The bill was passed into law in September 2021. Critics of Zelenskyy's administration have claimed that, in taking power away from the Ukrainian oligarchs, he has sought to centralize authority and strengthen his position.