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Ukraine 1998 Parliamentary Election

Ukraine's second parliamentary election since the collapse of the USSR took place on March 29, 1998. The election was the held under a new law approved in October 1997 that changed the selection of seats from a simple majoritarian vote to a split system. The new law divided parliamentary representation into two groups, proportional and single seat. By law, half of the 450 seats are filled based on the percentage of votes received by a particular party. The other 225 seats are elected on an individual basis. Each party must receive at least 4% of the proportional vote in order to receive proportional representation.

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), violence and voting irregularities occured, particularly in Odesa and Crimea. One candidate for mayor of Odesa was detained for three days after assaulting the incumbent candidate, and several journalists were the victims of physical attacks. The government's Information Ministry suspended operation of The Pravda Ukrainy newspaper, and another paper was fined almost two million dollars for alleged damages to the Kiev soccer team. Despite these problems, the OSCE concluded that the election results generally reflected the will of the people.

When the OSCE published its report in April 1998, several individual races were undergoing evaluation, but both the preliminary and final results showed the Communist Party of Ukraine with the most seats. The CPU received almost 25% of the proportional vote, which yielded 84 seats in addition to the 37 seats it won through individual races. The Popular Movement of Ukraine [Rukh] had the second strongest showing with almost 10% of the vote and a total of 46 seats. The Socialist and Peasants Party, which formed in late 1997, won 29 seats in the proportional vote, but soon broke apart and its leader Oleksander Moroz later went on to form The Socialist Party.

Five other parties met the 4% minimum requirement for proportional representation, including the Hromada party, which was led by former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. The Hromada party soon disolved, but Tymoshenko later formed the Fatherland party that became part of a voting bloc bearing her name in the 2002 elections. Over 20 additional parties gained representation through at least one individually elected representative, while 111 members won seats without any party affiliation.