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This article presents the historical development and role of political parties inUkrainian politics, and outlines more extensively the significant modernpolitical parties sinceUkraine gained independence in 1991.
Ukraine has amulti-party system with numerous political parties, in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to formcoalition governments. In the(October 2014) Ukrainian parliamentary election 52 political parties nominated candidates.[1] In thenationwide (October 2015) local elections this number had grown to 132 political parties.[2]
Many parties in Ukraine have very small memberships and are unknown to the general public.[3] Party membership in Ukraine is lower than 1% of the population eligible to vote (compared to an average 4.7% in theEuropean Union[4]).[5][6] National parties currently not represented in Ukraine's national parliamentVerkhovna Rada do have representatives in municipal councils.[7][8][9][10] Small parties used to join in multi-party coalitions (electoral blocks) for the purpose of participating in parliamentary elections, but on November 17, 2011, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law that banned the participation of blocs of political parties inparliamentary elections.[11] Ukrainian society's trust of political parties is very low overall.[3][12] According to an April 2014 poll byRazumkov Centre 14.7%.[13] According to a February 2020 poll by again Razumkov Centre, more than 70% of respondents said they rather or completely did not trust political parties.[3]
TheUkrainian oligarchs play a key role in sponsoring of political parties and participation in every day politics.[14]
Parties can only register with theMinistry of Justice if they can "demonstrate a base of support in two-thirds ofUkraine's Oblasts" (Ukraine's 24 primaryadministrative units) and in two-thirds of theraions of theAutonomous Republic of Crimea.[15][16] This means that 10,000 signatures needs to be collected in these areas.[16] Including inCrimea, although Ukrainelost control of this territory in 2014 (toRussia).[16] (The only way to fulfill this norm is to get signatures ofUkrainian citizens living elsewhere in Ukraine with Crimean residence.[16]) Then within six months the party must establish regional offices in a majority of the 24 oblasts.[17] In practice these offices rarely stay active and open in-between elections.[17] Because of the procedural difficulties of registering a party the practice of renaming existing political forces is widespread.[16] (For instance, from January to September 2020 50 parties changed their name.[16]) In practice this means that long career politicians in Ukraine regularly switch to a new party.[16]
10 years in a row not nominating candidates for national parliamentary and presidential elections is a legal ground for liquidating a party.[3][nb 1]
Ukraine’s election law forbids outside financing of political parties or campaigns.[18]
All data on any legal political parties as any other public organizations in Ukraine is kept at the Single Registry (Ukrainian:Єдиний реєстр громадських формувань,Yedynyi reyestr hromadskykh formuvan), with online version of which provided by the Ministry of Justice.[19] On 1 January 2020 349 political parties were in this register.[3]
There have developed two major movements[nb 2][nb 3] in the Ukrainian parliament since its independence:[22][23][24]
The first movement (mentioned above) gets its voters mainly fromWestern Ukraine andCentral Ukraine; the latter fromEastern Ukraine andSouthern Ukraine.[33]
| Political camps[34] | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pro-Western,pro-NATO,pro-European,anti-Russian, andUkrainian nationalist | Domination of Russian culture and preservation of Soviet culture, moreEurosceptic, oftenanti-American and partly anti-liberal | Regional and local interests, city andoblast level politics | Parliamentary groups, formed post-election and often with the backing of anoligarch and few shared positions among members | |||||||
| Servant of the People European Solidarity Batkivshchyna Holos Radical Party Strength and Honor Ukrainian Strategy Civil Position Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Self Reliance Democratic Axe | Platform for Life and Peace Trust the Deeds [uk] Banned: Communist Party of Ukraine Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine Party of Regions Our Land Opposition Bloc (2019) Opposition Platform — For Life Party of Shariy Nashi Russian Bloc Russian Unity | Proposition Successful Kharkiv All-Ukrainian Union "Cherkashchany" Svitlychna Bloc — Together! Native City Native Zakarpattia Native Home Bila Tserkva Together | For the Future Trust | |||||||
Ukrainian parties tend not to have a clear ideology but to contain different political groups with diverging ideological outlooks.[35] Unlike inWestern politics,civilizational andgeostrategic orientations play a more important role than economic andsocio-political agendas for parties.[23] An example is the membership of the social-democratic[citation needed]Batkivshchyna party in the economically liberalEuropean People's Party.[23] This has led tocoalition governments that would be unusual from aWestern point of view; for example: thefirst Azarov government included theParty of Regions, thecentristLytvyn Bloc and theCommunist Party of Ukraine.
ProfessorPaul D'Anieri has argued (in 2006) that Ukrainian parties are "elite-based rather than mass-based,"[36] while former Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine (2000–2006) Dietmar Stüdemann fromEmbassy of Germany, Kyiv believes that personalities are more important in Ukrainian politics than (ideological) platforms. "Parties in the proper meaning of this word do not exist in Ukraine so far. A party forGermans is its platform first, and its personalities later."[37]
| Number of parties | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Amount | |||||||
| January 2009 | 161[38] | |||||||
| July 2009 | 172[39] | |||||||
| May 2010 | 179[40][41] | |||||||
| July 2010 | 182[42] | |||||||
| September 2011 | 197[43] | |||||||
| November 2012 | 201[38] | |||||||
Even beforeUkraine became independent in August 1991, political parties in Ukraine started to form around intellectuals and formerSoviet dissidents.[44][not specific enough to verify] They posed the main opposition to the rulingCommunist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (CP(b)U). At the first convocation of theVerkhovna Rada[when?] those parties formed the parliamentary opposition People's Council. The most noticeable parties of the parliamentary opposition included thePeople's Movement of Ukraine (The Movement) and theUkrainian Republican Party. Due to theAugust Putsch inMoscow (19–21 August 1991), a process to prohibit communist parties in Ukraine took place. Led byOleksandr Moroz, the parliamentary faction of the CP(b)U, Group of 239, started a process to re-form the CP(b)U into theSocialist Party of Ukraine. The restriction on the existence of communist parties in Ukraine was successfully adopted soon after theUkrainian independence, however in the couple of years the resolution was later challenged and eventually the restriction was lifted. In 1993 inDonetsk the first congress of the reinstatedCommunist Party of Ukraine took place, with the Party led byPetro Symonenko.
In the hastily organized1994 parliamentary elections the communists surprisingly achieved the highest party rating, while the main opposing party,the Movement, did not gain even a quarter of their earned[clarification needed] seats. The re-formed party of the CP(b)U, theSocialist Party of Ukraine, and its major ally, thePeasant Party of Ukraine, performed relatively strongly. About a third of the elected parliamentarians were not affiliated. The elections became a major fiasco of the Democratic forces in Ukraine. After the 1994 elections numerous independent political parties were elected to theUkrainian parliament, leading to the formation of nine deputy groups and parliamentary factions: Communists, Socialists, Agrarians,Inter-regional Deputy Group (MDG), Unity, Center, Statehood, Reforms, and the Movement. The concept of a "situational majority" was first used during that convocation to form a parliamentary coalition. The ruling coalition in the parliament often included theCommunist Party of Ukraine, theSocialist Party of Ukraine, Agrarians, MDG, and Unity.
During the Kuchma presidency (1994–2004) parties started to form around politicians who had achieved power; these parties were often a vehicle ofUkrainian oligarchs.[44][not specific enough to verify] Scholars defined several "Clans" in Ukrainian politics grouped around businessmen and politicians from particular Ukrainian mayor cities; the "Donetsk Clan" (Rinat Akhmetov,Viktor Yanukovych andMykola Azarov), the "Dnipropetrovsk Clan" (Yulia Tymoshenko,Leonid Kuchma,Victor Pinchuk,Serhiy Tihipko andPavlo Lazarenko), the "Kyiv Clan" (Viktor Medvedchuk and theSurkis brothers; this clan has also been linked toZakarpattia) and the smaller "Kharkiv Clan".[45][46][47][48][49][22][50][51][52]
After the 2002 elections the Ukrainian parliament saw some consolidation of democratic political parties and the establishment of the main political camps in Ukraine: a coalition of nationally oriented deputies with the pro-European vector, a coalition of left-wing parties, and the pro-Russian parties coalition of the former Sovietnomenklatura. A major change took place during theOrange revolution when finally the two opposing political camps were established after the left-wing coalition split.
On 17 November 2011 the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law that banned the participation of blocs of political parties inparliamentary elections;[11] since then several parties have merged with other parties.[53][54][55] Strong Ukraine merged with the Party of Regions on 17 March 2012.[56] Front of Changes and former Our Ukraine Bloc and Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko members performed in the 2012 parliamentary elections under "umbrella" party Fatherland.[57][58][59][60][61] Front for Changes leader Yatsenyuk headed this election list; because Fatherland-leaderYulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned.[62][63]
On 15 June 2013Reforms and Order Party andFront for Change merged into Fatherland.[64] A part ofPeople’s Movement of Ukraine (including its former chairmanBorys Tarasyuk[65]) also merged with Fatherland (the rest of this party had merged withUkrainian People's Party in May 2013[66]).[67][68]
In preparation for the upcoming 2014 parliamentary elections, several ministers of the Fatherland party in thegovernment of Arseniy Yatsenyuk moved to the new partyPeople's Front, which elected as its party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk on 10 September 2014.[69][70]
UDAR merged into thePetro Poroshenko Bloc on 28 August 2015[71] after in the2014 parliamentary election, 30% of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc election list had been filled by members of UDAR (asnon-partisan).[30]
Following theEuromaidan, theParty of Regions chose not to participate in the new2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, and many of their members formed a new successor party calledOpposition Bloc to compete on an anti-Maidan platform.[72][73][74]
In summer 2018, there were negotiations between the parties "For Life" andOpposition Bloc on a potential merger. According toUkrainska Pravda, this was supported bySerhiy Lyovochkin andDmytro Firtash, who controlled one of the wings of Opposition Bloc, withRinat Akhmetov controlling the other wing. In early November 2018, members of the Akhmetov wing decided to pause negotiations, while Opposition Bloc chairmanYuriy Boyko signed a cooperation agreement with "For Life" during the2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election andpresidential election.[75][76][77] The same day, Opposition Bloc leading membersVadym Novynskyi andBorys Kolesnikov claimed the agreement was a "personal initiative" of Boyko and that the party had not taken any decisions on cooperation with For Life.[78]
On 20 November 2018, Boyko andSerhiy Lyovochkin were excluded from the Opposition Bloc because they "betrayed our voters' interests" according to party co-chairmanOleksandr Vilkul. The Boyko faction then established theOpposition Platform — For Life party.[79][80]
On 20 March 2022, PresidentVolodymyr Zelensky announced a ban on 11 political parties for alleged ties with Russia:Opposition Platform — For Life,Party of Shariy,Nashi,Opposition Bloc,Left Opposition,Union of Left Forces,Derzhava,Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine,Socialist Party of Ukraine,Socialists andVolodymyr Saldo Bloc.[81]
Following the ban on pro-Russian parties, several regrouped into new ones: some from the2019 Opposition Bloc regrouped intoUkraine is Our Home, while former members ofOpposition Platform — For Life split intoPlatform for Life and Peace andRestoration of Ukraine.[82][83]
On 20 June 2024, alsoOur Land party was banned with the accusation of theSecurity Service of Ukraine of subversive activities against State, bringing to 19 the number of banned parties since the beginning of the Russian invasion.[84]
| Participating parties | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election | Number | Threshold | Winners | |||||
| 1998 | 30 | 4% | 8 | |||||
| 2002 | 33 | 4% | 6 | |||||
| 2006 | 45 | 3% | 5 | |||||
| 2007 | 20 | 3% | 5 | |||||
| 2012 | 22 | 5% | 5 | |||||
| 2014 | 29 | 5% | 6 | |||||
| 2019 | 22 | 5% | 5 | |||||
{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|url= (help)Link to a pdf-fileINTERIM REPORT 2015 Ukrainian local elections,OSCE (9 October 2015)