The bill on de-oligarchization is being drafted to eliminate potential competitors of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the next presidential election, political expert Taras Zahorodniy has said.

"It's not so much a bill about oligarchs. It's a bill about how we will re-elect Zelensky in the second term. It is being drafted so that everyone is loyal to him and no one chooses his potential competitors. But not at the level of oligarchs, but at the level of local elites. So that regional elites do not fund alternative political candidates for the presidency in the future," Zahorodniy said at a roundtable talk entitled "Cold, unpredictable summer of 2021 - governance crisis leading to economic chaos, social decline" hosted by Interfax-Ukraine.

According to Zahorodniy, "in Ukraine there is a good antitrust law and enough tools for demonopolization, but it takes a desire."

"This is not about fighting the oligarchs. However, the bill could lead to conflict," the political expert said.

As expert of Hardarika Strategic Consulting Corporation Kostiantyn Matviyenko noted, "Zelensky has gained full power, and his team is shaping Ukraine's social and economic life in such a way that a protest cannot be avoided."

"His team is now very active in shaping the protest mood and the protest electorate," Matviyenko said.

According to Director of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological service Viktor Nebozhenko, "there is a danger that authoritarian mechanisms may be formed on the basis of the law on oligarchs, as well as the law on the sale of land."

"I wonder how the Constitutional Court will now react to the appearance of protest documents about the oligarchs. They will not sit and be silent. And if the result is an out-of-court powerful effective manual control mechanism, it is already dangerous," Nebozhenko said.

He also said that "the President's Office is in too much of a hurry to pass laws on oligarchs and the sale of land."

"Perhaps they are trying to replace old industrial oligarchs with new land oligarchs. This is bad," the political expert said.