Socialist Party of Ukraine Соціалістична партія України | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | SPU |
| Leader | Viktor Zaika[1] |
| Founder | Oleksandr Moroz |
| Founded | 26 October 1991 (34 years, 32 days) |
| Banned | 15 June 2022 (3 years, 165 days)[2] |
| Preceded by | Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union) |
| Newspaper | Tovarysh |
| Ideology |
|
| Political position | Centre-left toleft-wing |
| International affiliation | Socialist International (2003–2011) |
| Colours | Dark red |
| Slogan | Socialism will be imbued with patriotism[3] There is no alternative to democratic socialism in Ukraine[4] |
| Party flag | |
 | |
TheSocialist Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian:Соціалістична партія України,romanized: Sotsialistychna partiia Ukrainy, abbreviatedSPU) was asocial democratic[5][6] anddemocratic socialist[5]political party in Ukraine. It was one of the oldest parties inUkraine and was created by former members of theSoviet-eraCommunist Party of Ukraine in late 1991, when the Communist Party was banned.[7]
Involved in a number of popular protest movements in the early 2000s, it was third and fourth largest party in parliament during its time in parliament. The party entered government for the first time as part of a coalition withOur Ukraine and theYulia Tymoshenko Bloc in 2005, but its decision to form a government with the opposingParty of Regions and the re-foundedCommunist Party of Ukraine in 2006 caused significant damage to the party's credibility.[8] Despite historically strong support in the central regions of Ukraine, it failed to pass the 3% threshold to enter parliament in the 2007 parliamentary elections. From then onwards, the party's electoral results became increasingly marginal and it failed to win any seats in subsequent elections.
The party's founder,Oleksandr Moroz, was elected Chairman of theVerkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, in 1994 and played a key role in the adoption of theConstitution of Ukraine. He led the party for more than 20 years until his resignation in 2012, after which the party became embroiled in a long-lasting leadership struggle. In 2017, the party was taken over by a former member of the far-rightRight Sector,Illia Kyva. It participated in the 2019presidential andparliamentary elections without any success.
The party was suspended in the wake of theRussian invasion of Ukraine and banned by a court decision on 15 June 2022.[2]
FollowingUkraine's independence on 24 August 1991,[9]Leonid Kravchuk as theChairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) signed several important documents among which was the disbandment (26 August) and later the prohibition (30 August) ofcommunist parties. This led to the collapse of the communist-majority faction, informally known as the "group of 239", led byOleksandr Moroz.[10] Four days after the prohibition of communist parties, Moroz called on communists to unite in a new left-wing party. The founding congress of the party was held inKyiv on 26 October 1991 and Moroz was elected leader. The party's programme, approved at a second congress held in November 1992, emphasised the party's status as the successor to the Communist Party of Ukraine and proclaimed the party's goal of achieving socialism through "people's democracy".[7]
In 1993, the party experienced a mass exodus of members when theCommunist Party of Ukraine (KPU), which claimed to be the direct successor of the Soviet-era Communist Party, was formed in June. The situation was so severe that several of the party's regional organisations had ceased to exist and the continued existence of the party was put into question at an extraordinary congress, but those who supported merging into the Communist Party remained in the minority.[7] In total, some 40,000 members, or half the party's membership, left for the refounded KPU.[11]
In December 1993, the party entered the opposition to the administration of prime ministerLeonid Kuchma and presidentLeonid Kravchuk,[12] but by this point Kuchma had already resigned as prime minister.
In March 1994, the party participated in the country'sfirst parliamentary election since independence and won 14 seats, becoming the fourth-largest party in the Verkhovna Rada behind the Communist Party,People's Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), and thePeasant Party of Ukraine (SelPU).[13] By mid-1994, the party controlled a parliamentary faction of 25 deputies,[14] as deputies from other parties, especially those from thePeasant Party of Ukraine (SelPU) opted to sit with the Socialists, and Moroz was electedChairman of the Verkhovna Rada (speaker of parliament) with the support of Communist deputies.[7]
In the1994 presidential election held in June, Moroz was the sole left-wing candidate and received the support of both the Communist Party, and the Peasant Party, but garnered just 13.3% of the vote and failed to advance past the first round of voting. Moroz himself did not endorse either Kravchuk or Kuchma in the second round,[15] and the party's central leadership left the decision of who to endorse for the presidency to individual branches. Most followed the Communist Party in supporting Kuchma, the eventual winner.[7] During the election, Moroz campaigned for transforming Ukraine into aparliamentary republic, prohibiting the sale of land, and a "state-regulated market".[8][16]
Over the course of Moroz's term as chairman, relations between himself and Kuchma became increasingly strained. The duo notably clashed on the issue of constitutional reform; Kuchma favoured increasing the power of the presidency and transforming Ukraine into a unitary state, while Moroz and the left-wing in parliament sought to empower parliament and advocated decentralisation. The adoption of a temporary,mini constitution [uk] in June 1995 did not ease tensions, and Moroz repeatedly rebuffed efforts to pass "pro-presidential" drafts of abasic law. Thesemi-presidential republicanconstitution, a compromise, was eventually adopted by parliament with the necessary two-thirds majority in June 1996.[7][8]
In February 1996,Nataliya Vitrenko was expelled from the party over disputes with Moroz and the rest of the leadership concerning the party's political programme which she believed deviated from socialist ideals.[17] She and Volodymyr Marchenko, who was also expelled from the party, founded theProgressive Socialist Party of Ukraine a month later in April 1996.[7]
In the run up to the1998 parliamentary election, attempts to form a coalition with theCommunist Party had failed[7] and the party instead contested alongside thePeasant Party of Ukraine in an electoral alliance calledFor Truth, For the People, For Ukraine (Za pravdu, za narod, za Ukrainu), later known as Left Center.[17][18] The bloc managed to secure 8.55% of the votes, 29proportional seats, and 5constituencies out of 450 in the Verkhovna Rada.[7] The bloc gained the position ofChairman of the Verkhovna Rada (speaker of parliament) when Peasant Party chairmanOleksandr Tkachenko was elected to the post.[12][19] The Peasant Party later started its own parliamentary faction with 15 deputies in the autumn of 1998 but disbanded in 2000[20][21] as many of the Peasant Party's deputies followed their faction leaderSerhii Dovhan [uk] into the newly formed pro-presidentialSolidarity led byPetro Poroshenko.[22]
For the1999 Ukrainian presidential election, Moroz was a member of the "Kaniv Four", an alliance of presidential hopefuls that included formerPrime Minister of UkraineYevhen Marchuk, Mayor ofCherkasy Volodymyr Oliynyk, and the Peasant Party's Oleksandr Tkachenko. The four agreed to support Marchuk as the joint candidate after protracted negotiations, but the alliance fell apart when Moroz abruptly announced his decision to stand for election.[23]
Despite being considered the most likely candidate to defeat Kuchma, Moroz failed to advance past the first round of voting, having come third with only 11.29% of the vote. Plagued by allegations of electoral fraud,[24][25] Kuchma also faced accusations of having funded the Progressive Socialist Party in order split the left-wing vote.[26]
During the 2000s, the party was member to a series of protests and conflicts in opposition to the presidency of Kuchma and pro-Kuchma parties. It opposed the2000 Ukrainian constitutional referendum called by Kuchma with the intention of expanding the powers of the presidency and decreasing that of the Ukrainian parliament. While the amendments were approved by voters, their implementation was obstructed when Kuchma was implicated in theCassette Scandal, also known as Kuchmagate. Moroz publicly accused Kuchma of being involved in the disappearance and murder of journalistGeorgiy Gongadze, who had been found decapitated in Kyiv. He played select recordings that supposedly proved Kuchma ordered the abduction of Gongadze to journalists using a cassette player, which earned the scandal its name.[12]
The resultantUkraine without Kuchma (UBK) protest campaign ended when it was violently dispersed by theMilitsiya, the national police force, in March 2001.[27] One of the party's members who gained national prominence as a result of his involvement in the protests,Yuriy Lutsenko, would later become the minister of internal affairs under the government ofYulia Tymoshenko as well asProsecutor General of Ukraine.
Separately, a group of former party members consisting ofIvan Chizh [uk],Serhii Kiyashko [uk],Mykola Lavrynenko [uk], and Vasyl Aresto, founded the splinterAll-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice" in April 2000.[7] As members of the Socialist Platform, they had been expelled for their opposition to Moroz's reforms within the party.[11]
During the election campaign for the2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, opposition parties and candidates were afforded little media access,[28] and the party's youth wing endorsed theSocial Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), a member of the pro-Kuchma alliance led byViktor Medvedchuk.[12] Nevertheless, the party managed to secure 6.9% of the popular vote, and 20 proportional seats seats, and 3 constituencies. The Union of Young Socialists was founded as the party's new youth organisation the same year and led by Oleksandr Starynets, a former first secretary ofKomsomol of Ukraine.[29] The party was a participant in theRise up, Ukraine! protests which called for early presidential elections.[30]
The party was a participant in theOrange Revolution in 2004, a series of protests sparked by thefraudulent results of the2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Moroz had been the party's candidate but shifted his support toViktor Yushchenko after garnering just 5.82% of the vote in the first round. The election's initial result, which gave the victory to Kuchma-supportedViktor Yanukovych was contested by international observers.[31] Yushchenko was declared the winner of the re-run, and Yanukovych resigned as prime minister to allow for the appointment of a newcoalition government led by Yulia Tymoshenko, which counted the Socialist Party alongsideOur Ukraine, theYulia Tymoshenko Bloc, and theParty of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine. The government's inauguration was the first time the party held power as part of the executive branch of the central government. It received three ministerial portfolios, withStanislav Nikolaenko assuming the position of Minister of Education and Science,Yuriy Lutsenko as Minister of Internal Affairs, andOleksandr Baranivsky as Minister of Agrarian Affairs. The coalition was replicated at the regional level, with the party gaining the position of chairman of the regional state administration in twooblasts, as well as the appointment ofValentyna Semenyuk-Samsonenko as director of theState Property Fund of Ukraine.[12] The party retained its position in the succeedingYekhanurov government, which had come to power in the aftermath of a power struggle between the head of theNational Security and Defense CouncilPetro Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, who was dismissed as prime minister as a result.[32][33]
In 2005, theUkrainian Party of Justice - Union of veterans, handicapped, Chornobyl liquidators, and Afghan warriors merged into the Socialist Party.
The party and Moroz played a key role in the2006 Ukrainian political crisis. Negotiations to re-form an "orange" coalition after the March2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election between the Socialist Party, Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc were complicated by mutual distrust and disputes over the allocation of positions in government;[34][35][36] Moroz supported Tymoshenko's claim to the premiership, and she in turn supported Moroz's candidacy as chairman of the Verkhovna Rada,[37][38] but Tymoshenko herself was unpopular among Socialist Party members,[39] while Our Ukraine held counter negotiations with Yanukovych's Party of Regions.[40] Three months of negotiations seemed to close to an end after Moroz announced he would no longer seek the chairmanship and promised to support Our Ukraine's presumptive candidate,Yury Yekhanurov,[41][42] paving the way for thecoalition's confirmation on 21 June.[43] However, when Petro Poroshenko was revealed as Our Ukraine's candidate, Moroz submitted his own candidacy and was elected with the support of deputies from the Socialist Party, Party of Regions, and the Communist Party,[44] which formed the basis for the creation of theAnti-Crisis Coalition. Moroz would justify the turnabout by claiming Our Ukraine had intentionally engineered the coalition's breakup by nominating a candidate it knew the party couldn't accept, and had planned to use that as their justification for entering into an alliance with the Party of Regions.[45]
The party's decision to walk back on its agreement with its erstwhile "orange" allies proved controversial and had a lasting impact on the party's image, as it was now seen as traitorous and corrupt.[8] High-ranking members including then-minister for interior affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, who would go on to leadYuriy Lutsenko's People's Self-Defense,[12] party first secretaryYosip Vinsky, who would go on to join Tymoshenko'sBatkivshchyna, as well as Halyna Garmash, a member of the party's political council, all resigned from the party in its immediate aftermath. Furthermore, a study conducted by the Gorenshin Institute in November 2006 showed that the party had lost much of its support in its traditional heartland in central Ukraine.[46] When a power struggle between Yanukovych and Yushchenko led to the2007 Ukrainian political crisis[47] and asnap election in September the same year, the party's vote share collapsed. It received just 2.86% of the national vote, 0.14% short of the minimum 3% threshold for entry into parliament.[48]
Much of the criticism for the poor electoral result within the party was directed againstYaroslav Mendus, who was in charge of the party's campaign during the election, and the party's "grey cardinals".[49][50] Others in the leadership such as Valentina-Semenyuk and Mykhailo Melnychuk were similarly targeted.[51] Their critics included well-known members of the party such asVolodymyr Boyko, ared director and a major financial contributor to the party,[52] youth leaderYevhen Filindash, and former ministers Stanislav Nikolaenko, and Oleksandr Baranivsky.[53][54] However, no changes were ultimately made to the composition of the party's leadership in that year's congress.[55]
Continued dissension within the party culminated in the expulsion of Nikolaenko and Baranivsky, who alongsideMykola Sadovy, were branded "schismatics" by Moroz. Both Nikolaenko and Baranivsky had previously put forward a programme to reform the party at a congress in April 2008, advocating the introduction of a two-term limit for both the party's leader and head of the central control commission, the party's disciplinary body. They also proposed introducing secret ballots for elections, purportedly with the aim of removing Moroz from the leadership. The two would go on to join the splinter"Justice" party along with some 300 members in March 2009. Other critical figures such as Yevhen Filindash left the party in April 2008. Mykola Sadovy was handed a reprimand.[56][57][58][59]
In a press conference in November 2009, Moroz stated he had no regrets about joining the Anti-Crisis Coalition, saying: "I'm not ashamed but proud of the fact that I managed to halt the crisis of power. The economy operated normal and, the parliament adopted 80% of the laws [it considered] by a constitutional majority of votes. We were close to the decentralization of power. That's why Tymoshenko and Yushchenko's supporters forced the president to dismiss the parliament and remove me and my political forces illegally".[60]
The party nominated Moroz as their candidate in the2010 Ukrainian presidential election,[61] and garnered just 0.4% of the vote. The election was eventually won by Viktor Yanukovych.[62] Moroz stepped down as leader in July 2010 and was replaced byVasyl Tsushko, the incumbent minister for the economy in theAzarov government. Moroz was made the party's honorary leader.[63] The other candidates includedMykola Rudkovsky, one of the party's financers holding the position of first secretary of the political council, Viktor Subotin, the general manager ofTurboatom, and Valentina-Semenyuk.[64][65] The party's electoral misfortunes continued in that year'slocal elections, where just 38 councilors from the party were elected across 11 oblasts and three city councils. It performed the best in theChernihiv andPoltava Oblasts where the party won 11% and 5.8% of the votes respectively.[66]
Tsushko himself resigned as leader in July 2011, citing the difficulty of combining his position in government as head of theAnti-Monopoly Committee with party responsibilities. Sources within the party claimed the true reason was Tsushko's deteriorating health.[67] In the leadership election held afterward, Moroz, who ran on a platform of bringing the party into opposition to the Azarov government, managed to defeat Rudkovsky, who was alleged to have the backing of the ruling Party of Regions.[68][69]
That same month, the party was reported to have been expelled from theSocialist International for failing to comply with "the fundamental values and principles of the International".[70] However, the minutes of the meeting where the decision was undertaken showed that the party had been expelled "due to not being actively engaged in SI activities, having no representation, or not having paid membership fees for some time".[71]
Rudkovsky left the party in December 2011 after a planned merger of 11 left-wing parties failed, accusing Moroz of sabotaging the unification process to maintain hiscult of personality.[72] The party had been member to an agreement announced in November that year which would have seen ten other left-wing parties merge into the Socialist Party, whereupon it would adopt a new name. This plan fell apart when the party's political council refused to ratify the merger agreement and demanded the other parties merge into the Socialist Party without any conditions.[73] Only five parties agreed to do so; thePeasant Party of Ukraine,Socialist Ukraine, Children of War, "Children of War" People's Party of Ukraine, and Cossack Glory,[74] while the remaining five parties opted to merge and form theUnited Left and Peasants.[75][76] In January 2012, theMinistry of Justice declared the merger between the Peasant Party and the Socialist Party illegal.[77]
Rumours that Moroz would resign as leader amid reports of his deteriorating health appeared in April 2012 ahead of that year's party congress.[78]Petro Ustenko was elected the party's leader after being nominated by Moroz, winning 267 votes out of 342. He previously served as the party's first deputy chairman responsible organisational work as well as head of the party's election headquarters.[79] In the2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party failed to win any representation. It garnered just 0.46% of theparty list vote and failed to win in any of the 58constituencies it contested in.[80][81]
The party's poor performance in the parliamentary elections as well as Ustenko's failure to secure the party's finances culminated in a crisis in 2013. That year's congress was postponed from July to October, as Rudkovsky was readmitted after winning a seat in parliament as a self-nominated candidate in 2012. He reportedly held several meetings with members where he promised to provide funding for the party. At this point, Rudkovsky was a member of the Party of Regions' parliamentary faction. Sources close to the party described the situation as an "internal struggle" between Moroz and Rudkovsky.[82][83]
The resultant congress adopted a new party statute and created two new positions; leader, which would be held by Ustenko, responsible for the party's organisation, and chairman, by Rudkovsky, who would be responsible for the party's political direction.[84] Valentina-Semenyuk was touted as a possible contender for the leadership but withdrew when nominated, as did Moroz.[85] Political scientist Andrey Zolotarev considered Rudkovsky's election to be part of a plan by the ruling Party of Regions to weaken the popular support of its erstwhile Communist ally.[86]
In the aftermath of theEuromaidan andRevolution of Dignity, which saw the overthrow of Yanukovych and the dismissal of the Party of Regions-led government, acting presidentOleksandr Turchynov ordered theMinistry of Justice to open investigations against the Communist Party for "anti-state activities" in May 2014, putting its continued existence into doubt. The Socialist Party, being the country's oldest left-wing party, found itself in a position where it was likely to inherit a sizable portion of the Communist electorate in the upcoming2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, increasing its political and monetary value immensely. In that context, a congress was held on 21 June where the decision was made by a majority of delegates present to return to the party's previous statute, whereupon Rudkovsky was elected the party's sole leader. Ustenko contested the legitimacy of the congress and its results, hiring a security firm to raid the party's offices, resulting in a protracted legal battle. Both Ustenko and Rudkovsky accused each other of intending to sell off the party.[87][88]
The State Register's refusal to register the results of the party's congress left it unable to participate in the2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election; its members were part of the electoral list of theBloc of Left Forces instead. The party won 0.08% of the vote and returned no deputies.[89][90] For similar reasons, the party couldn't participate in the2015 Ukrainian local elections.[91]
Citing "unsatisfactory health", Rudkovsky stepped down as leader and fled the country in 2015. He was replaced by Mykola Sadovy at the second stage of the twentieth congress held in August.[92][93]
In June 2017, theAdministrative Court of Cassation confirmed the Kyiv District Administrative Court's 2015 decision that the results of the 2014 congress were to be implemented in full and that the State Register's refusal to do so was illegal.[94]
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In July 2017,Illia Kyva announced that he had been elected as the party's chairman on hisFacebook page. The former leader of the far-right political partyRight Sector in eastern Ukraine, Kyva's election was described by Moroz as an attempt by Ustenko's faction to nullify the administrative court of cassation's decision. Ivan Bokyi, a former chairman of the party's parliamentary faction, described Kyva's election as a government-linked raid against the party.[95] Ustenko later admitted that Kyva's election was part of an agreement with internal ministerArsen Avakov, to whom Kyva was an advisor; he was to help the party prepare for future presidential and parliamentary elections.[96]
The same month, the State Register was updated and listed Kyva as the party's chairman and Ustenko the leader.[97][98]
In response to Kyva's election, Sadovy's faction opted to electSerhiy Kaplin as their leader. Kaplin was a people's deputy linked to Avakov's rival, politician and oligarchSerhiy Lyovochkin. This faction subsequently agreed to enter into a coalition with Kaplin's Social Democratic Party (SDP) as well as theParty of Pensioners for upcoming elections.[99][100]
In January 2018, Ustenko and his faction's members were removed from the State Register. Ustenko accused Kyva of being responsible and announced his expulsion from the party.[96] In an appearance onEspreso TV, a Ukrainian news organisation owned by Avakov's wife Inna Avakova, Kyva denied reports of his expulsion and alleged that Ustenko had been in contact with individuals linked to Russian presidentVladimir Putin and Russian organised crime to negotiate funding for the party, further claiming that they had been expelled from the party the previous month as a result.[101][102] In response, Ustenko launched a lawsuit to nullify the changes made to the State Register.[103]
In March 2018, Kyva's faction approved a new programme where it adopted an outwardly pro-EuropeanAtlanticist attitude, advocating for the Ukrainian membership in theEuropean Union andNATO.[104] It also adopted a new logo, a yellow fist on a crimson background, and nominated Kyva as its candidate for the2019 Ukrainian presidential election.[105] He won just 0.03% of the vote and was replaced as the party's leader by Serhiy Cherednychenko.[106] This faction nominated candidates for two constituencies in the2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Cherednychenko in the 144th district and pro-Russian oligarchOleksandr Onyshchenko in the 93rd district. It also co-operated with the pro-RussianOpposition Platform — For Life, with Kyva being elected as a member of its closed list.[107][108]
In January 2019, Kaplin's election as chairman of the Sadovy faction was nullified, and the party opted to support Moroz's candidacy in the presidential election instead.[109] However, Moroz withdrew from the race four days before the first round of voting.[110]
On 24 February 2022, Russia launched aninvasion into Ukraine. On 6 March, Kyva was charged withhigh treason after making a number of statements justifying the invasion and blaming it on Ukrainian presidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy.[111] He had fled to Russia a month prior to the invasion.[112] The SPU was one of several political parties suspended by theNational Security and Defense Council of Ukraine as a result of the invasion, along withDerzhava,Left Opposition,Nashi,Opposition Bloc,Opposition Platform — For Life,Party of Shariy,Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine,Union of Leftists, and theVolodymyr Saldo Bloc.[113]
On 15 June 2022, the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned the party and all of its property was transferred to the state.[2] Vikor Zaika, who was also the director of the Illia Kyva Charitable Foundation "Liberation", was the party's official leader at its banning. TheSecurity Service of Ukraine and Ministry of Justice cited the party's alleged anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activities, statements of its previous leaders, as well as Kyva's continued influence over the party as its justifications.[1] On 18 October 2022, the final appeal against the party's ban lodged by Sadovy's faction was dismissed by theSupreme Court of Ukraine.[114]
While the party was founded at the initiative of reformists within the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, the rank-and-file membership who answered the appeal for the formation of a new left-wing party were significantly more radical than its leadership and many who had participated in the party's founding had sought to recreate the banned Communist Party under a new name. This had a significant impact on the party's early positions; while it adopted a compromise on the national question, positioning itself as a supporter of Ukrainian statehood, but one based on the equality of all individuals regardless of nationality, and advocated for unity with former Soviet republics, it fiercely opposed any and all reforms to the country's economic system, with Moroz decrying the "unprecedented, uncontrolled profiteering of Western monopolies in the economical and spiritual space of Ukraine".[115] It also adopted the view that thedissolution of the Soviet Union was caused by thefailure of the state-bureaucratic system rather than the result of a crisis of socialism.[116][11]
The party's poor performance in the 1994 parliamentary elections, where it won fewer seats than the refounded Communist Party, as well as Moroz's election as parliamentary chairman, which necessitated compromise with the executive, provided the some impetus for the party to begin adopting a more moderate position. In a post-election congress held in April 1994, Moroz publicly complained about the attitude of some of the party's membership, who had tried to "transfer the party organisation over to the Communists" upon its refoundation in 1993. Instead, he argued that with the party free of its defectors—some 40,000 party members had left for the Communist Party in between 1993 and 1994—it could now adopt a more centrist approach. The party's leadership thus adopted a less antagonistic attitude towards the government's reform programme and accepted the principle of private ownership, if only for the service and retail trade industry. Moroz's supporters also began to talk of emulating theDemocratic Left Alliance of Poland, whose electoral success in the1993 Polish parliamentary election allowed it to form a coalition government; that following the "Polish route", the party should build a broad coalition of left-wing parties with democratic and progressive-patriotic forces.[116]
During this time, the party also attempted to affirm its Ukrainian character by claiming the legacy of non-Soviet socialists such asMykhailo Drahomanov andVolodymyr Vynnychenko, as well as earlynationalist figures within theUkrainian SSR, such asVasyl Shahkrai,Mykola Skrypnyk,Christian Rakovsky, andAlexander Shumsky.[11]
The party's right-ward shift resulted in a split in 1995, when the head of the party's theoretical council and author of its political programme, Natalia Vitrenko, was expelled from the party's faction in parliament, and finally expelled from the party proper alongside Volodomyr Marchenko in 1996. With the possibility of another large-scale defection, as much of the party's rank-and-file's sympathies laid with the rebels, a special congress in February 1996 reverted to a more hardline stance. However, the party's move toward the centre was renewed with the adoption of a "New Course" in its June 1998 congress, held in the aftermath of that year's parliamentary elections, where the party won just 34 seats compared to the Communists' 124. Moroz opened the party to other social and political movements and deemphasisedMarxism-Leninism as the party's theoretical base, while abandoning ideas such as thedictatorship of the proletariat andclass struggle entirely. The party further sought to broaden its appeal to include the emergingmiddle class and "honest" industrialist. While the congress had been compared to theSocial Democratic Party of Germany's 1959Godesberg Congress, the changes it introduced were more analogous toRobert Hue's modernisation of theFrench Communist Party, from which Moroz took inspiration.[11]
The adoption of an explicitlydemocratic socialist programme at the party's May 2000 congress was preceded by another two waves of expulsions in December 1999 and February 2000 of members of the Socialist Platform.[11] The document, which classified the party as centre-left, consisted of aminimum programme, which called for the elimination of theoligarchic clan system and establishment of a transitionary government, and amaximum programme, which called for the establishment of democratic socialism in Ukraine.[117] The party also advocated European integration as well as Ukrainian membership in theCommonwealth of Independent States, but opposed membership in NATO and its expansion into Eastern Europe.[118]
In its 2006 pre-election programme "We will build Europe in Ukraine", the party promoted itself as a European social democratic party and proposed a referendum on Ukrainian membership in NATO. In contrast, its 2007 pre-election programme lacked the previous year's social democratic character, did not mention NATO, and advocated closer relations with both the European Union and Russia.[119][120][121]
Year | Party-list | Constituency/total | Overall seats won | Seat change | Government | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Popular vote | % | Seats/total | |||||
| 1994 | 895,830 | 3.3% | 14/338 | 14 / 450 |  14 | Minority support | |
| 1998 | For Truth, for People, for Ukraine | 8.8% | 14/225 | 3/220 | 17 / 450 | 3 | Opposition |
| 2002 | 1,780,642 | 7.1% | 20/225 | 2/225 | 22 / 450 | 5 | Opposition |
| 2006 | 1,444,224 | 5.7% | 33/450 | N/A | 33 / 450 | 11 | Coalition government |
| 2007 | 668,234 | 2.9% | 0/450 | N/A | 0 / 450 |  33 | Extra-parliamentary |
| 2012 | 93,081 | 0.5% | 0/225 | 0/220 | 0 / 450 |  | Extra-parliamentary |
| 2014 | Did not participate | 0/225 | 0/198 | 0 / 450 | | Extra-parliamentary | |
| 2019 | 1,990 | 0.01% | 0/225 | 0/199 | 0 / 450 | | Extra-parliamentary |
| Presidency of Ukraine | ||||||
| Election year | Candidate | First round | Place | Second round | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | |||
| 1994 | Oleksandr Moroz | 3,466,541 | 13.3 | 3 | ||
| 1999 | Oleksandr Moroz | 2,969,896 | 11.8 | 3 | ||
| 2004 | Oleksandr Moroz | 1,632,098 | 5.8 | 3 | ||
| 2010 | Oleksandr Moroz | 95,169 | 0.4 | 11 | ||
| 2014 | Olha Bohomolets (endorsed by the SPU) | 345,384 | 1.9 | 8 | ||
| 2019 | Illia Kyva[122] | 5,869 | 0.3 | 29 | ||
Media related toSocialist party of Ukraine at Wikimedia Commons
