Political parties in Ukraine

This article presents the historical development and role of political parties in Ukrainian politics, and outlines more extensively the significant modern political parties since Ukraine gained independence in 1991.

For complete list, see List of political parties in Ukraine.

Overview

Ukraine has a multi-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 form coalition governments. In the (October 2014) Ukrainian parliamentary election 52 political parties nominated candidates.[1] In the nationwide (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 the European Union[4]).[5][6] National parties currently not represented in Ukraine’s national parliament Verkhovna Rada do have representatives in municipal counsels.[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 in parliamentary elections.[11] Ukrainian society's trust of political parties is very low overall.[3][12] According to an April 2014 poll by Razumkov Centre 14.7%.[13] According to a February 2020 poll by again Razumkov Centre, more than 70% of surveyed rather or completely did not trust political parties.[3]

The Ukrainian oligarchs play a key role in sponsoring of political parties and participation in every day politics.[14]

Legal framework

Parties can only register with the Ministry of Justice if they can "demonstrate a base of support in two-thirds of Ukraine's Oblasts" (Ukraine's 24 primary administrative units).[15] Then within six months the party must establish regional offices in a majority of the 24 oblasts.[16] In practice these offices rarely stay active and open in-between elections.[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.[17]

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 (link). On 1 January 2020 349 political parties were in this register.[3]

Major parties and political camps

There have developed two major movements[nb 2][nb 3] in the Ukrainian parliament since its independence:[20][21][22]

• A pro-Western and pro-European general liberal national democrats[23][18] who from time to time featured individual politicians with a nationalist past (for example Andriy Shkil, Andriy Parubiy and Levko Lukyanenko) with the Our Ukraine Blocs and Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (now Fatherland[24]) as its frontrunners;[25] UDAR replaced the Our Ukraine Bloc in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election.[26][27] In the 2014 parliamentary election UDAR did not participate but its members filled 30% of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc election list.[28] The Petro Poroshenko Bloc won the election with 132 seats.[29]
• A pro-Russian, latently Eurosceptic, often anti-American and partly anti-liberal group of parties, which in the 1990s was dominated by the Communist Party of Ukraine, and was dominated by the Party of Regions from the late 2000s till the party disintegrated shortly after the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.[21][25][30][31]

The first movement (mentioned above) gets its voters mainly from Western Ukraine and Central Ukraine; the latter from Eastern Ukraine and Southern Ukraine.[32] The radical nationalistic[33] All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" (7 seats in the Ukrainian parliament[29]) can not be placed in the above-mentioned two major movements.[21] "Svoboda" gets the lion share of its votes from Western Ukraine.[34]

The political party Revival managed to reach the Verkhovna Rada on several occasions without winning elections. The party parliamentary faction was forming based on unaffiliated politicians.

Political camps[35]
Ukrainian nationalist, Eurosceptic, revival of national culture, eradication of Soviet heritage, and generally far-right and anti-liberal	Pro-Western, pro-NATO, pro-European, and anti-Soviet	Domination of Russian culture and preservation of Soviet culture, latently Eurosceptic, often anti-American and partly anti-liberal
Svoboda National Corps Right Sector Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists Ukrainian National Union	Petro Poroshenko Bloc Self Reliance Radical Party Fatherland Revival People's Front Our Ukraine UKROP Movement of New Forces	Opposition Bloc Our Land Strong Ukraine Labour Ukraine For life Communist Party of Ukraine Ukrainian Choice Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine

Ideology

Ukrainian parties tend not to have a clear ideology but to contain different political groups with diverging ideological outlooks.[36] Unlike in Western politics, civilizational and geostrategic orientations play a more important role than economic and socio-political agendas for parties.[21] This has led to coalition governments that would be unusual from a Western point of view; for example: the Azarov Government which included the Party of Regions with the financial backing of some Ukrainian oligarchs and the Communist Party of Ukraine and the social-democratic Batkivshchyna and the economically liberal European Party of Ukraine in the Second Tymoshenko Government.[21]

Criticism on current situation

Professor Paul D'Anieri has argued (in 2006) that Ukrainian parties are "elite-based rather than mass-based".[37] While former Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine (2000–2006) Dietmar Stüdemann from Embassy of Germany, Kiev 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 for Germans is its platform first, and its personalities later."[38]

History

Number of parties
Date	Amount
January 2009	161[39]
July 2009	172[40]
May 2010	179[41][42]
July 2010	182[43]
September 2011	197[44]
November 2012	201[39]

Independent Ukraine, party forming (early 1990s)

Even before Ukraine became independent in August 1991, political parties in Ukraine started to form around intellectuals and former Soviet dissidents.[45] They posed the main opposition to the ruling Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (CP(b)U). At the first convocation of the Verkhovna Rada those parties formed the parliamentary opposition People's Council. The most noticeable parties of the parliamentary opposition included the People's Movement of Ukraine (The Movement) and the Ukrainian Republican Party. Due to the August Putsch in Moscow (19–21 August 1991), a process to prohibit communist parties in Ukraine took place. Led by Oleksandr Moroz, the parliamentary faction of the CP(b)U, Group of 239, started a process to re-form the CP(b)U into the Socialist Party of Ukraine. The restriction on the existence of communist parties in Ukraine was successfully adopted soon after the Ukrainian independence, however in the couple of years the resolution was later challenged and eventually the restriction was lifted. In 1993 in Donetsk the first congress of the reinstated Communist Party of Ukraine took place, with the Party led by Petro Symonenko.

In the hastily organized 1994 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 seats. The re-formed party of the CP(b)U, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, and its major ally, the Peasant 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 the Ukrainian 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 the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Agrarians, MDG, and Unity.

Parties for oligarchs and clans (1994–2004)

During the Kuchma presidency (1994–2004) parties started to form around politicians who had achieved power; these parties were often a vehicle of Ukrainian oligarchs.[45] Scholars defined several "Clans" in Ukrainian politics grouped around businessmen and politicians from particular Ukrainian mayor cities; the "Donetsk-clan" (Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Yanukovich and Mykola Azarov), the "Dnipropetrovsk-clan" (Yulia Tymoshenko, Leonid Kuchma, Viktor Pinchuk, Sergey Tigipko and Pavlo Lazarenko), the "Kiev-clan" (Viktor Medvedchuk and the brothers Surkis; this clan has also been linked to Zakarpattia) and the smaller "Kharkiv-clan".[46][47][48][49][50][20][51][52][53]

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 Soviet nomenklatura. A major change took place during the Orange revolution when finally the two opposing political camps were established after the left-wing coalition split.

Merging parties (2011-now)

On 17 November 2011 the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law that banned the participation of blocs of political parties in parliamentary elections;[11] since then several parties have merged with other parties.[54][55][56] Strong Ukraine merged with the Party of Regions on 17 March 2012.[57] Front of Changes and former Our Ukraine Bloc and Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko members performed in the 2012 parliamentary elections under "umbrella" party Fatherland.[58][59][60][61][62] Front for Changes leader Yatsenyuk headed this election list; because Fatherland-leader Yulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned.[63][64]

On 15 June 2013 Reforms and Order Party and Front for Change merged into Fatherland.[65] A part of People’s Movement of Ukraine (including its former chairman Borys Tarasyuk[66]) also merged with Fatherland (the rest of this party had merged with Ukrainian People's Party in May 2013[67]).[68][69]

In preparation for the upcoming 2014 parliamentary elections, several ministers of the Fatherland party in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk moved to the new party People's Front, which elected as its party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk on 10 September 2014.[70][71]

UDAR merged into the Petro Poroshenko Bloc on 28 August 2015[72] after in the 2014 parliamentary election, 30% of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc election list had been filled by members of UDAR (as non-partisan).[28]

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

Political parties in Parliament

Seats won in parliamentary elections (since 1990, Chamber of Deputies or unicameral parliament)
Party	1990	1994	1998	2002	2006	2007	2012	2014	2019
Group of 239 (Communist Party of Ukraine, original)	239
People's Movement of Ukraine (People's Council)	125	20	46	OU	OU	OU	–	–	–
Party of Democratic Revival of Ukraine (CPU Democratic Platform)	41	4
Democratic Union (DU–DPU)				DU–DPU	–	–	–	–	–
Democratic Party of Ukraine (DPU–PEV, DU–DPU)	19	2	2	5	–	–	–	–	–
Party of Economic Revival (DPU–PEV)		1	DPU–PEV	–
Communist Party of Ukraine		86	122	65	21	27	32
Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU–SelPU)		14	35	22	33	–	–	–	–
Peasant Party of Ukraine (SPU–SelPU)		19	SPU–SelPU	1	–	–	–	–	–
National Front (NF)			7
Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists		5	NF	OU	OU	–	–	–	–
Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party		2	NF
Ukrainian Republican Party	12	8	NF	BYT	–	–	–	–	–
Ukrainian National Assembly		1	–	1	–	–	–	–	–
Party of Labor (PP–LPU)		4	2
Liberal Party of Ukraine (PP–LPU)		–	PP–LPU	OU	–	–	–	–	–
Social Democratic Party of Ukraine		2	75	–	–	–	–	–	–
Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine		1	2	–	–	–	–	–	–
Civil Congress of Ukraine (HKU–UPS)		2	1	–	–	–	–	–	–
Ukrainian Party of Justice (HKU–UPS)		–	HKU–UPS	BU	–	–	–	–	–
People's Democratic Party			27	Zayedu	–	–	–	–	–
Party of Greens of Ukraine		–	19	–	–	–	–	–	–
Hromada			23	–	–	–	–	–	–
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine			17	–	–	–	–	–	–
Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united)			17	27	–	–	–	–	–
People's Party (Agrarian Party of Ukraine, Lytvyn)			7	Zayedu	–	20	2	–	–
Strong Ukraine				–	–		–	1	–
Reforms and Order Party (Our Ukraine)			4	OU	–	BYT	–
Christian Democratic Union (CDU–UCDP)			3	OU	OU	OU	–	–	–
Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party (CDU–UCDP)	–	–	CDU–UCDP	–	–	–	–	–	–
Viche		–	1	–	–	–	–	–	–
Party of Regions (Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine)			2	Zayedu	186	175	185	–	–
All-Ukrainian Party of Workers	–	–	1	–	–	–	–	–	–
Union			1	–	–	–	1	–	–
Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU–DNU)		–	1	–	–	–	–	–	–
State Independence of Ukraine (SNPU–DNU)	–	–	SNPU–DNU	–
Bloc "Our Ukraine" (OU)				112	81	72
Youth Party of Ukraine				OU	–	–	–	–	–
Solidarity				OU	–	–	–	–	–
Forward, Ukraine!				OU	–	OU	–	–	–
Republican Christian Party				OU	–	–	–	–	–
Ukrainian People's Party				OU	–	OU	–	–	–
For United Ukraine! (Zayedu)				121
Labour Ukraine				Zayedu	–	–	–	–	–
Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine				Zayedu	OU	–	–	–	–
Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYT)				22	129	156
Fatherland				BYT	BYT	BYT	101	19	26
Ukrainian Platform "Sobor"				BYT	OU	OU	–	–	–
Ukraine – Forward!				BYT	BYT	BYT	–	–	–
Party of National Economic Development of Ukraine			–	1	–	–	–	–	–
Ukrainian Marine Party	–	–	–	1	–	–	–	–	–
Unity Bloc (BU)				4
Unity				BU	–	–	–	–	–
Young Ukraine	–	–	–	BU	–	–	–	–	–
Social Democratic Union				BU	–	–	–	–	–
Our Ukraine					OU	OU	–	–	–
European Party of Ukraine						OU	–	–	–
Pora!					–	OU	–	–	–
Motherland Defenders Party				–	–	OU	–	–	–
Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (European Capital)					–	–	40	–	–
United Centre (Party of Private Property)				–	–	–	3	–	1
Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko (URDP)							1	22	–
Freedom			1	1		–	37	6	1
People's Front								82	–
European Solidarity								132	25
Self Reliance								33	1
Opposition Bloc								29	6
Spade (People's Initiative)							–	1	–
Will							–	1	–
Right Sector								1	–
Servant of the People									254
Opposition Platform — For Life									43
Voice									20
Independent	6	168	105	66			43	96	46

See also

• Politics of Ukraine
• Liberalism in Ukraine

Notes

1. Civil movement "Chesno" claims that 25 parties took part in a 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election by-election (in electoral district 179 located in Kharkiv Oblast on 15 March 2020) solely to avoid being liquidated.[3]
2. Some Ukrainian parties could not be clearly classified as belonging to one of these two major movements, they were either synthesising the ideas of the two camps and/or strove to position themselves as a balancing force; examples of these parties are Socialist Party of Ukraine, Lytvyn Bloc and Labour Ukraine.[18]
3. Ukrainian politicians have switched to parties that belong(ed) to another of these two major movements.[19]

References

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2. Reform Watch - Oct. 1, 2015, Kyiv Post (Oct. 2, 2015)
   Rhinos, dill and hidden threats confuse voters in Kyiv, Kyiv Post (Oct. 2, 2015)
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18. Ukraine's Party System in Transition? The Rise of the Radically Right-Wing All-Ukrainian Association "Svoboda" by Andreas Umland, Centre for Geopolitical Studies (1 May 2011)
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    UDAR submits to Rada resolution on Ukraine’s integration with EU, Interfax-Ukraine (8 January 2013)
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    Klitschko: I lead my team to Parliament, UDAR official website (14.09.2014)
    Deadline for nomination of candidates running in early election to Rada expires, ITAR-TASS (September 15, 2014)
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    People's Front 0.33% ahead of Poroshenko Bloc with all ballots counted in Ukraine elections - CEC Archived November 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Interfax-Ukraine (8 November 2014)
    Poroshenko Bloc to get 132 seats in parliament - CEC, Interfax-Ukraine (8 November 2014)
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    (in Ukrainian) Party of Regions: Snake return, The Ukrainian Week (2 October 2015)
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42. Justice Ministry registers Your Ukraine Party, Kyiv Post (May 5, 2010)
43. Youth into Power party registered, Kyiv Post (July 2, 2010)
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55. Tymoshenko, Lutsenko aware of their parties' unification, Kyiv Post (December 29, 2011)
56. (in Ukrainian) Одна з партій НУНС перейменувалася та змінила голову, Ukrayinska Pravda (December 3, 2011)
57. Tigipko hooks up with Party of Regions, Kyiv Post (March 20, 2012)
    Strong Ukraine party decides on disbanding to join Regions Party, Kyiv Post (March 17, 2012)
58. (in Ukrainian) Соціально-християнська партія вирішила приєднатися до об'єднаної опозиції, Den (newspaper) (24 April 2012)
59. Opposition to form single list to participate in parliamentary elections, Kyiv Post (2 March 2012)
    (in Ukrainian) "ФРОНТ ЗМІН" ІДЕ В РАДУ З "БАТЬКІВЩИНОЮ", Ukrayinska Pravda (7 April 2012)
    Yatseniuk wants to meet with Tymoshenko to discuss reunion of opposition, Kyiv Post (7 April 2012)
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61. Civil Position party joins Ukraine's united opposition, Kyiv Post (20 June 2012)
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    Front for Change, Reforms and Order to dissolve for merger with Batkivshchyna - Sobolev, Ukrinform (11 June 2013))
66. Ukraine-Russia relations didn’t get any better, ex-Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk says, z i k (February 5, 2011)
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68. Batkivschyna, Front for Change, Reform and Order Party, part of NRU unite for victory – Tymoshenko’s address to congress, Interfax-Ukraine (15 June 2013)
69. Tymoshenko re-elected Batkivshchyna leader, Yatseniuk council chair, Ukrinform (15 June 2013)
70. Yatseniuk heads People's Front Party, Ukrinform (10 September 2014)
    Jatzenjuk an die Spitze der Partei „Volksfront“ gestellt, Ukrinform (10 September 2014)
71. «Народний фронт» представив кандидатів Archived September 28, 2014, at Archive.today, Hromadske.TV (10 September 2014)
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External links

• Ukraine's party system: specifics of establishment, problems of functioning, trends of evolution, 2010 analysis by Razumkov Centre