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Ukraine Political Parties - 2010

For a United Ukraine

Agrarian Party of Ukraine was established in December 1996 and its first leader was Mykhailo Zubets. The party was created to support the interests of collective farmers, and it favors the privatization of state-owned farms.

Labor Ukraine / Working Ukraine [Trudova Ukrayina] is led by Serhiy Tihipko and is the largest and most disciplined of the non-Communist factions. Labor has 49 members, two of whom are most important. Viktor Pinchuk is rich, represents a powerful Dnipropetrovsk clan and has clout with the president, whose daughter he married; Ihor Sharov has superior organizational abilities that make the strongly pro-Kuchma faction probably the best managed in the Rada. Before joining in the creation of For a United Ukraine, the Labor Ukraine party was one of four members of the TUNDRA bloc supporting president Kuchma.

Party of Regions The Party of Regions was created in March 2001 from the unification of five parties, including Regional Revival. Three quarters of the party's members are in Donbas. The favorite candidate to replace Kuchma was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, head of the Donetsk clan's Party of Regions, because he could ensure votes from the densely populated Donbas. Influence over the Lugansk oblast state administration is another of the party's valuable assets. Mykola Azarov, a long-standing ally of President Leonid Kuchma, was elected leader of the Party of Regions in March 2001 only to resign in December. Regions of Ukraine is the parliamentary wing of the Party of Regions of Ukraine. The party itself finalized almost a year of political bargaining between the five-strong political association, the Party of Regional Renaissance "Working Solidarity of Ukraine" (PRR WSU). The visibly amorphous association transformed into the Party of Regions of Ukraine on March 3, 2001.

The Party of Regions is composed of various business interests in the south and east of Ukraine. It comes predominantly out of the Donbass and particularly the Donetzk Oblast (province). It is a party that represents forces who wish to keep control by certain oligarchs within that region and to a very considerable degree it was financed by one of the richest, or the richest, man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov. In many ways the Donetzk Oblast can seem to be his bailiwick. It also has influence throughout the south and east of the country, although there are other regional and economic elites that oppose it. It has relatively little support in central Ukraine and almost none in western Ukraine. And it also is a party that is closely allied with what may be seen as Russian-language interests and with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.

While many Western press stories immediately labeled Yanukovych and Party of Regions the "victors" in the 26 March 2006 vote based on their plurality, Regions' success was more nuanced. Regions did not aspire to be a national party in this election cycle; instead, Regions was running to protect its base in the east and south against the Communists and Vitrenko. Regions ran a well-financed, well-organized campaign, successfully consolidating that base, which had largely voted Communist in the 1998 and 2002 Rada elections. Regions won the nine oblasts plus Sevastopol that Yanukovych carried in 2004, securing slightly more than two-thirds of the support Yanukovych received then. Employing American consultants rather than Kremlin operatives to advise it on tactics and outreach to the media and Western interlocutors, Regions also partially rehabilitated an image tarnished by its attempts to steal the 2004 election.

By 2009 the Party of Regions was internally divided among competing political and business groups controlled by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, former Finance Minister Azarov and oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov, Dmytro Firtash, and Andriy Kluyev. Regions was divided by those members who would like to further integrate into European institutions (like Akhmetov) and members who would like closer integration with Russia (like Azarov). The party balanced between both tendencies, but Ukraine's choices between Europe and Russia increasingly were mutually exclusive. Regions was widely supported across Southern and Eastern Ukraine, but the party was dominated almost exclusively by leaders from the Eastern Dontesk and Luhansk oblasts.

People's Democratic Party was the former 'party of power' from the 1998-2000 period. Led by then Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoitenko, it criticised the removal of NDP members from the government, and began to cooperate with Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine in 2003.

Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine, led by Anatoly Kyrylovych Kinakh, was on of the few pro-government parties not to support Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 elections. In July 2004, the party nominated its leader to run for president. Kinakh previously served as Ukrainian Prime Minister in 2001.

Our Ukraine

The biggest party loser in the 2006 elections was Yushchenko's People's Union Our Ukraine (PUOU), the core of the Our Ukraine election bloc, which defied pre-election polls to slump into third place and below 14% on election day. PUOU's organization was in complete shambles, would stagger to the election, and would need to rebuild from the ground up afterwards. Our Ukraine had no visible, effective organization outside of Lviv and several other western provinces, relying primarily on a slick, expensive TV campaign and Orange Revolution nostalgia. Voters did not respond.

Two of the more organized party elements of the initial five-party Our Ukraine bloc that won a 23.6% plurality in the 2002 Rada elections, Yuri Kostenko's Ukrainian People's Party (UPP) and the Reforms and Order Party (PRP), decided to run independently from the Our Ukraine bloc in 2006, primarily because of disagreements with Yushchenko and his entourage. In doing so, they repeated the mistake both made in 1998, when they ran separately and failed to reach the threshold. While both factions will enter a variety of city and provincial councils with their modified blocs (Kostenko-Plushch, Pora-PRP), their vote totals in the Rada race (1.9 and 1.5%, respectively), along with that of Our Ukraine MP Yuri Karmazin, who ran separately (0.7%), were lost.

Christian People's Union was one of the four parties that formed the Christian Democratic Union in 2003. Led by Volodymyr Stretovych, The party supports the separation of church and state, believing that no church should be receive special treatment, or experience pressure from governmental authorities. At the sixth assembley of the party on April 12, 2003, the Christian People's Union joined with The Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party, the Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine, and the All-Ukrainian Union of Christians to form the Christian Democratic Union. See Ukrainian Weekly.

Forward Ukraine was formed by the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party and the Party of Christian-Popular Union in the late 1990s and had 19 incumbent members of the Verkhovna Rada going into the 1998 parliamentary election. The party is led by Viktor Musiyaka and although some had hoped for a merger with the Reforms and Order Party, negotiations did not lead to an agreement to unify. See Brama.

Liberal Party of Ukraine, led by Volodymyr Shcherban, was established in September 1991 and was officially registered a month later. Volodymyr Shcherban and Yevhen Shcherban were leaders of the Donetsk elite. The first "party of power" in Donetsk went into decline after Yevhen Shcherban -- the local governor, a parliamentary deputy, and a high-ranking Liberal Party member -- was assassinated in November 1996. Volodymyr Shcherban, the party's leader has served as governor of Sumy oblast and Viktor Yushchenko hoped that Shcherban's influence in the area would lend support to the Our Ukraine alliance. In July 2004, however, the first deputy of the Liberal Party of Ukraine, Mykola Zhulinskiy, left the party because it had decided to endorse the pro-government candidate Victor Yanukovych. See Our Ukraine Press Release.

Rukh A group of Ukrainian writers living in Kiev formed the party in September 1989 and initially rallied to support perestroika in the USSR. The Rukh Party, which began in 1989 as a political force opposing the Soviet regime in 1989 and became the vanguard for the pro-democracy, pro-independence movement that led to Ukrainian independence. After the party gained political influence by winning a number of elections in 1990, its members continued pushing for the goal of Ukrainian independence. At the organization's third congress in March 1992, it elected Vyacheslav Chronovil as its co-chairman who would continue to hold sway in the party. In the course of challenging Leonid Kuchma for the presidency of Ukraine in 1999, he was killed in a suspicious car accident on 25 March 1999. It has faltered badly since it split into two camps - the National Rukh of Ukraine under Hennadi Udovenko and and Ukrainian National Rukh under Yuri Kostenko.

[Rukh-Kostenko] People's Movement of Ukraine is one of the oldest members of the Our Ukraine alliance. The Movement was previously headed by Hennadiy Udovenko who was replaced by Borys Tarasyuk in the fall of 2004. In February 1999, less than a month before Chronovil was killed in an accident, the party had split and a new Rukh, the Ukrainian People's Movement began under the leadership of Yuriy Kostenko. The group was pro-Kuchma before the Gongadze scandal involving the murder of a journalist. It strongly opposed Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenko and other law enforcement heads. See Zerkalo Nedeli.

Reforms and Order Party, led by Viktor Pynzenyk, was created in October 1997 and although it began as a small organization, it gained several important seats in the Ukrainian parliament. The party has been an ally of the People's Movement of Ukraine and continued to support the original leader of the Rukh after that party separated in 1999. Members of the Reforms and Order Party encouraged Viktor Yushchenko to run for president in 1999, but he refused. The party opposed Kuchma and was one of the principal founders of the Our Ukraine bloc. See Zerkalo Nedeli.

Republican Christian Party, led by Mykola Podrovsky, was formed in 1997 after opposition arose to the direction of the Ukrainian Republic Party. Three high ranking members of the URP, Mykhailo Horyn, Mykola Porovskyi and Mykola Horbal, were removed from the URP after they walked out of a meeting in protest of the party's new leadership, which they claimed was moving the party in a pro-authoritarian direction. See Ukrainian Weekly.

Solidarity Party, led by Petro Poroshenko, is a relatively new addition to the realm of Ukrainian politics with its establishment in February 2001. Party leader Poroshenko played a key role in managing the Our Ukraine headquarters.

Ukrainian Nationalists' Congress, led by Yaroslav Stetsko.

Ukrainian National Party was formerly called the Ukrainian People's Movement Rukh until its leader, Yuriy Kostenko, agreed to change the name. The party was formed in February 1999 as a breakaway group from the original Rukh, the People's Movement of Ukraine. The two Rukh factions signed an agreement in July 2001 in preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections, but continued differences prohibited complete unification and after the election, the party changed its name to the Ukrainian National Party. See Ukrainian Weekly.

Youth Party of Ukraine, led by Yuriy Pavlenko, played a leading role in demonstrations supporting Our Ukraine candidate Viktor Yushchenko following the hotly contested elections in November 2004. Members of the Youth Party went on a hunger strike for several days to protest election fraud that appeared to give the sitting Prime Minister Yanukovych an electoral victory. See Our Ukraine Press Release.

Communist Party of Ukraine

Although it was the largest faction in the Rada with 112 members as of 2001, the Communist Party of Ukraine won only 66 seats in the 2002 parliamentary elections. The existence of the party was banned between 1991 and 1993, but experienced a resurgence in the following years. When the CPU was reregistered in 1993, Petro Symonenko was elected the party's leader, and remained at its helm ever since. The Communists abandoned their traditional motto of "Solidarity Forever" and instead adopted a new one that translates as either "Let's make a deal" or "What's in it for us?". Some say that President Kuchma was pleased to have such a domesticated opposition as the Communist Party of Ukraine. Others believe that Symonenko sold himself to Kuchma during the presidential campaign in 1999.

The CPU had on occasion served Kuchma's interests, which opened it to charges of opportunism, but after 1999 is took a firm opposite standing. In 2000, the Communist Party split into two factions, one of which was pro-presidential. The other faction remained under the leadership of opposition party faction leader Petro Symonenko, said to be anti-market, anti-American and pro-Russian. Petro Symonenko is one of a few Ukrainian politicians against whom no serious discrediting materials were published. During the 2004 campaign, Symonenko charged that Moroz, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko (orchestrated by the USA) are plotting a coup in Ukraine.

In the 2010 presidential campaign, Petro Symonenko, who had headed the Ukrainian Communist Party since 1993 and had been a Rada MP since 1990, was polling at 3.6 percent, his support in terminal decline from his 1999 campaign when he went head-to-head with former President Leonid Kuchma in the second round and garnered 37.8 percent of the vote. Symonenko was the only presidential candidate who promised to abolish the presidency in favor of a full parliamentary system. Symonenko gained the backing of a number of small parties on the left and is negotiating with the Socialist party to be their official candidate too. Symonenko favored closer ties with Moscow, including a joint customs union, and promises to stop all integration and cooperation with NATO. Symonenko advocated returning privatized companies to state hands and heavy government control of the economy and prices. He created a stir in early 2010 by divorcing his wife and marrying a woman 30 years his junior, who had just given birth to his daughter. Symonenko has been invisible as a candidate in the pre-election blitz.

On 22 July 2014, President Petro Poroshenko signed into law changes that allow the speaker to dissolve a parliamentary faction with fewer members than it had when it was formed at the first session of parliament. Several members of the Ukrainian Communist Party’s parliamentary faction had quit recently, reducing its size in parliament by about one-third. Oleksandr Turchynov announced on 24 July 2014 he was dissolving the Communist faction in parliament. Communist deputies would still be present in parliament but without a faction.

A preliminary court hearing was held on 24 July 2014 into the Justice Ministry’s application to ban the communist party itself over alleged financing and support for the Kremlin-backed militants in the Crimea and east of Ukraine. At the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine initiated 308 criminal proceedings against members of the Communist Party in connection with the support of the annexation of Crimea and for aiding and abetting the “DNR” and “LNR” [Luhansk People’s Republic] terrorists.

Communist Part of Ukraine (renewed) In mid-July 2000 a new Communist party, the CPU(o) was formed. The CPU should not be mixed up with the pro-presidential Communist Part of Ukraine (renewed), which was created in 2000 to split the communist vote. Unlike in the title of the United Socialist Democrats SDPU(o) - the new Communists' (o) stands for onovlena, i.e., "renovated". The party's official creator was Mykhailo Savenko, who was elected to lead the party by the CPU(o) foundation congress. A former Progressive Socialist, Savenko was a member of the Ukrainian parliament and member of the Trudova Ukraina ("Working Ukraine") faction.

Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT)

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc is named after its leader who also founded the Fatherland Party in 1999. Tymoshenko served as deputy prime minister for fuel and energy under Viktor Yushchenko during his term as Prime Minister. In 2001, Tymoshenko helped form the National Salvation Forum to oppose President Kuchma. Based on expectations heading into the 2006 election, the runaway winner March 26 appeared to be BYuT, which most pre-election polls for months had predicted would finish third with around 15% of the vote. In the competition for Maidan votes, BYuT bested Our Ukraine handily, some 22% to 14%; BYuT won pluralities in 13 central and western Ukrainian oblasts plus Kiev, compared to only three for Our Ukraine. BYuT also more than tripled its 2002 Rada vote (7.2%). Furthermore, BYuT built organizations in eastern and southern Ukraine, often running second to Regions; only BYuT and the Socialists can currently lay claim to being truly national parties. BYuT may have benefited from being out of government, tapping into voter discontent, as well as being led by the most charismatic of Ukrainian politicians, Yuliya Tymoshenko. But BYuT's effective grass roots organization and focused campaign tactics deserved a great deal of credit. That left BYuT and Tymoshenko herself well-positioned for future election cycles (2009 presidential, 2011 Rada).

In November 2001, the National Salvation Forum was renamed the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and consisted of the following party members:

Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine was one 18 political parties represented in an agreement to support Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 elections.

Conservative Republican Party is a small organization led by Stepan Khmara. The party faired poorly in the polls and in 1996, its membership dropped to 500 people.

The Fatherland / Motherland [Batkivshchyna] Party was founded by Yulia Tymoshenko in 1999 with an emphasis on bringing discussions of spirituality to the Ukrainian political landscape. The party served as the basis for the formation of the voting bloc named the party's founder.

Patriotic Party of Ukraine, led by Nikolai Gaber.

Sobor Party is too small (7 members) to be officially recognized as a faction, Sobor is a group within the non-factional list. Led by Anatoly Matviyenko, a former Kuchma ally now fiercely opposed to the president.

Ukrainian Social Democratic Party was formed by Vasyl Onopenko after the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine became divided over the issue of support of President Kuchma. The pro-Kuchma faction is now known as the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine-United.

Other Parties

Democratic Union Party is headed by former presidential adviser Oleksandr Volkov, openly called for Kuchma to extend his term in office because the authorities have been unable to provide an independent candidate to act as an umpire post-Kuchma.

Green Party of Ukraine [PZU] / Greens: Another faction with little to offer possible new members. Some members are political environmentalists but most are businessmen. Pro-presidential.

National Democratic Party: Led by non-Rada member and former Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko, this party has 20 members but little prospects for growth. Strongly pro-Kuchma.

Progressive Socialists: Shrunken to only seven members, Natalia Vitrenko's group of Stalinists attempts to make up for its small size with loud demagoguery. However, avoids direct criticism of Kuchma and in an emergency will dance to Bankova's tune.

Regional Rebirth / Regional Revival: The second biggest of the so-called "oligarch clans" after Labor, but far less effective legislatively, in part because of the mercurial nature of its leader, Oleksandr Volkov. The party suffered from internal clan grouping among members from its strong Donetsk base. The appearance of the party's faction Regions of Ukraine in the Rada upset Oleksandr Volkov, who had to change the name of his own Regional Revival faction to Democratic Union, in line with the name of his party. By 2000 the Party of Regional Renaissance was led by mayor of Donetsk Volodymyr Rybak.

[Rukh-Udovenko] National Rukh of Ukraine / Rukh 1 On 02 March 1999, the 16 pro-Chornovil deputies registered a separate parliamentary caucus headed by Chornovil, called Popular Rukh. After Chornovil's death, Udovenko was appointed the acting head of Popular Rukh. Hennadiy Udovenko, who was elected President of the fifty-second session of the UN General Assembly, has been the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine since September 1994. Prior to being appointed to that post, Udovenko was Ukraine's Ambassador to Poland, from 1992 to 1994. From 1980 to 1985, he was Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister. From 1985 to 1992, as the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, Mr. Udovenko served in various capacities. When Heorhiy Filipchuk, a head of one of the parliamentary committees, left the Rukh-Udovenko faction, its remaining members refused to participate in the Rada session and all legislative work came to a halt for the day. Critics charged that Udovenko was nothing but Kuchma's puppet. Udovenko had been reluctant to condemn Kuchma publicly. But in early December 2004 Udovenko called on President Kuchma to dismiss Yanukovych as prime minister, dismiss his Cabinet, and dismiss the Central Elections Commission.

Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United) SDPU(U): The SDPU(U) was a small party until it was taken over by the Kyiv oligarchic clan in the mid-1990s and its leader, former Justice Minister Vasyl Onopenko, was pushed out. Onopenko went on to create the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party. Another so-called "oligarch" clan, the SDPU(U) has 34 members. The party's effectiveness is limited by having several powerful and rich leaders who often disagree because of their competing business interests. Any good news for Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko is considered bad news for the SDPU(U)'s of presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk, a deputy Rada speaker with presidential ambitions. The SDPU(U) is pro-Kuchma but highly flexible.

Socialist Party of Ukraine is led by former Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz, who is still considered the "Mr. Clean" of the Rada. Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz publicized the audiotapes allegedly confirming President Kuchma's involvement in the disappearance of journalist Georgi Gongadze. But the party is not effective legislatively and not comfortable with its old Communist allies because of the Communists' tendency to sell out to Kuchma loyalists. See Romyr and Associates Following the 31 October 2004 election, in which Moroz placed third, Victor Yushchenko and Oleksandr Moroz signed a political Treaty, unifying democratic forces. The Treaty outlines the framework of cooperation between the "Power of People" coalition and the SPU. The Treaty states that Victor Yushchenko, on becoming the president of Ukraine, pledges to act on a number of social issues. Yushchenko pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq as soon as possible and to build good relations with the neighboring states, first of all with Russia and the EU. The two sides have also agreed on adopting the bill of changes to the Constitution of Ukraine (No. 4180) before 1 January 2005; the bill is to take effect no later than 1 January 2006.

The Socialists (SPU) can be considered a secondary winner in the 2006 cycle, even if they aspired to more than the 5.7% they received in their predicted fourth-place finish. The Socialists expanded a nationwide party structure and polled nearly evenly across the country, the only such Ukrainian political force to do so; they confirmed party leader Olexander Moroz's 2004 presidential first-round third-place support (5.8%), which pushed them past the Communists for the first time as Ukraine's leading "leftist" (in traditional European terms) force. While the Socialist niche is modest, it is well-defined, with a generally forward-looking, positive political agenda (its economic ideas, however, remain antediluvian). The SPU succeeded despite that fact that it being in power deprived it of the chance to tap into the protest vote, which had contributed to the SPU's 6.9% showing in the 2002 Rada elections.

Yabloko [Apple]. : Headed and largely funded by Mykhailo Brodskiy, Yabluko's 14 members tended to play a somewhat quixotic and independent game. Anti-Kuchma, pro-Russia drift.

Unity Party is led by Oleksander Omelchenko, who was nominated by his party to run in the 2004 presidential election. Omelchenko finished eigth in the 2004 presidential election with just under 0.5% of the vote. Omelchenko began serving as the mayor of Kiev in 1999, and his party was a co-organizer of the Forum for the Democratic Development of Ukraine in September 2002, which was a two day conference where opposition party leaders discussed the need to remove President Kuchma from power because of his corrupt administration.

Lytvyn's Peoples Bloc is led by Volodymyr Lytvyn [Vladimir Litvin] was the chairman of the Ukrainian Popular Party, formerly the Ukrainian Agrarian Party. His centrist electoral bloc, named Lytvyn's Peoples Bloc, was expected to be one of the winners in Ukraine's March 26 parliamentary elections. People's Block of Lytvyn won 2.44 % of the popular vote, but no seats in the Parliament of 5th convocation. Lytvyn had been the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament since 2002, when he was elected to parliament as leader of the pro-government For a United Ukraine bloc of parties. For this career historian and President Leonid Kuchma's speechwriter and chief of staff, this was his first experience in real politics. In the early parliamentary election held on September 30, 2007, the Lytvyn Bloc (renamed from Lytvyn's People's Bloc) consisted of the People's Party and the Labour Party was placed in fifth place. It won 20 out of 450 seats in the Parliament of Ukraine of 6th convocation.

The biggest individual loser of the 2006 election cycle was undoubtedly Rada Speaker Lytvyn, whose eponymous bloc failed to reach the 3-percent threshold for the Rada, leaving Lytvyn out in the cold. Lytvyn's bloc spent more money on advertising than any other party but Regions, according to official Central Election Commission (CEC) figures, and Lytvyn commanded 63 MPs in the current Rada, 15% overall. Lytvyn's campaign suffered from fatal flaws, however. It lacked any real organization beyond a collection of "names" at the national and local district level, many of whom were tainted with the Kuchmaist label (Lytvyn served as Kuchma's chief of staff prior to becoming Rada Speaker in 2002). The Lytvyn bloc had no real message for voters, beyond proposing itself and Lytvyn as a "referee" to reunite Ukraine between warring Orange and Blue factions. In the end, Lytvyn's vote total barely topped 600,000, the number of members his party claimed to have.

Volodomyr Lytvyn, Speaker of Parliament since 2008, previously served as Speaker from 2002-06 and as Chief of Staff to Kuchma from 1999-2002. He leads the Lytvyn Bloc, the smallest faction in the Rada as of 2010, and was polling at about 2.9 percent in the 2010 Presidential election. Lytvyn called for improved relations with Moscow, and argues Ukraine should "temporarily" abandon efforts to join NATO and the EU in order to focus on domestic development. He is a supporter of a "multi-vector" foreign policy that balances between East and West. Lytvyn's agenda is primarily focused on domestic policies, like raising welfare and pension payments and increasing government support for agriculture.

Front of Change political organization leader and Rada MP Arseniy Yatsenyuk was one of only three candidates with a chance to reach the second round of the 2010 presidential election. He served as Rada Speaker from 2007-08, Foreign Minister in 2007, and as the Minister of Economy from 2005-06. He was polling at 8.2 percent, a significant drop from his 13.1 percent rating in early summer. Despite initially positioning himself as the heir to Yushchenko's Euro-Atlantic policies, Yatsenyuk advocated a return to former President Kuchma's "multi-vector" foreign policy that sought a non-aligned status for Ukraine that balanced between Russia and Europe. His aides warned observers to expect more pro-Russian rhetoric from Yatsenyuk, designed to appeal to voters in the East and South. Yatsenyuk has said that the only difference between the US, Europe and Russia is that the West "smiles" as it uses Ukraine for its own interests. He campaigned for increased spending on social welfare programs, agriculture and the military. Yatsenyuk has called for a return to the strong presidential system under Kuchma.

Yatsenyuk had an extensive pre-campaign presence, with billboards and a multitude of para-military style tents where paid campaign workers hand out campaign materials. Yatsenyuk attempted to portray himself, unsuccessfully, as a savior of Ukraine with his slogan "To Save the Country." Yatsenyuk has asserted that the upcoming presidential election was Ukraine's "last chance" for democracy, and indicated that his campaign's "unhappy" colors, a camouflage theme, are intended to convey that the country is on the verge of destruction. Politics, he said, is about getting the best deal you can.