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Ukraine Political Parties - Introduction

The first Ukrainian political parties were formed in Galicia in the 1890s. The two main parties were the National Democrats and the Radicals. The National Democrats were a broad coalition whose platform contained the planks of democratic nationalism and social reform. The Radicals, founded under the direct inspiration of Drahomanov, was a party of agrarian socialists and militant anti-clericals. In east-central Ukraine, embryonic political parties appeared only at the turn of the century and especially after the Revolution of 1905, but their existence was precarious. The leading groupings were the Social Democrats, the Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Radical Democrat.

The parties were forcibly repressed in Soviet Ukraine, though during the 1920s intellectuals with a democratic-populist background continued to play a role in the country's cultural life. In western Ukraine, which had been annexed by Poland, the traditional democratic parties remained the official spokesmen of the Ukrainian community until the outbreak of the Second World War. The annexation of the Galician-Volhynian lands by the USSR in the autumn of 1939 caused the demise of the Ukrainian democratic parties in that area.

After a quarter of century of post-Soviet transition, political parties in Ukraine remain weak. There area at least five impediments to their development: Soviet political culture; corruption and cynicism; provincial elites; regional and linguistic diversity; and weak party structure. The Soviet legacy left an ideological wasteland in Eurasia in which it has proven difficult to build political parties. The absence of pre-Soviet party roots from which to draw made Eurasia different from the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. The late Soviet ‘era of stagnation’ and rapid, often violent and corrupt drive to a market economy in the 1990s deepened cynicism and corruption.

Ukraine's political party situation is subject to constant change. In order to achieve any political objective, it is necessary to build a coalition among parties. The proliferation of similarly named parties is due to frequent disagreements among party leaders that have resulted in the creation of additional factions. President Leonid Kuchma submitted the Law on Political Parties, with provision that if any MP elected via a specific party list changed factions, he or she would automatically lose his or her mandate. This provision was expected to introduce much-needed stability and party discipline to the Verkhovna Rada, if ever adopted, but nothing ever came of it.

For the purpose of parliamentary elections, most parties formed voting blocs, providing greater representation than they would otherwise receive. Ukrainian law requires that a party must receive at least four percent [later incerased to five percent] of the vote in order to be represented in parliament. In the Ukrainian Parliament, 225 seats were elected proportionally, and 225 seats are elected individually. In the elections of 2004, 2006 and 2007, all 450 seat were elected proportionally.

In March 2002, Ukraine held its third round parliamentary elections, since it separated from the Soviet Union. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) characterized the elections as flawed, but improved over the 1998 vote. The reformist Our Ukraine bloc of former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko won 70 seats through proportional voting and 42 seats by individual election. For a United Ukraine won almost twice as many individual seats as it did proportional seats, and ended up with a total of 102 representatives. The Communist Party of Ukraine received 66 seats, primarily through proportional balloting. Non-partisan candidates won 95 seats in the Rada, while the remaining 77 seats were divided between five additional groups elected through individual votes. In 2004, the top two voting blocs became the primary challengers in the presidential election.

Anders Åslund, Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted in testimony on May 12, 2004 before the Subcommittee on Europe Committee on International Relations US House of Representatives:

"The three most important oligarchic groups are regional: the Donetsk group, the Dnepropetrovsk group and the Surkis-Medvedchuk group in Kiev. These groups are both economic and political. At present, the strongest group by far is the Donetsk group. Its leader is Rinat Akhmetov, a businessman who owns System Capital Management, Ukraine's biggest corporation, focusing on metallurgy. Its parliamentary faction, the Regions, has some 65 members out of a total of 450. The second most important group is the Dnepropetrovsk group, whose business leader is Viktor Pinchuk, who owns the metallurgical company Interpipe. Its party, Labor Ukraine, has about 40 parliamentarians and is led by the Chairman of the National Bank, Serhiy Tyhypko. Pinchuk owns three TV channels. The Kiev businessman Hryhoriy Surkis and President Kuchma's chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk form the third group, which is much more state-oriented. Unlike the other groups, it has not developed normal private enterprises as yet. Medvedchuk controls the three biggest TV channels, and he plays a great role in law enforcement. Their United Social Democratic Party comprises some 40 parliamentarians. President Leonid Kuchma rules by playing off these and other less important oligarchic groups against one another."

In the 2007 elections, five parties gained seats in the Rada, Ukraine's unicameral parliament. The frontrunner with 34.37% is the Party of Regions, headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. The second is Yulia Timoshenko's Bloc with 30.7%. The pro-Presidential Our Ukraine - People's Self Defense Bloc (OU-PSD, NUNS in the Ukrainian acronym) gained 14.15%. The Communist party received 5.39 percent and the force led by former parliament speaker Vladimir Litvin trailed behind with only 3.96.

The 1996 Constitution stipulated that the parliament is elected for four years, while the current parliament was elected in 2007 for five years, after the amendments had been introduced. Ukraine's Constitutional Court ruled on 30 September 2010 that the 2004 constitutional reform, which transferred a significant amount of power from the president to parliament, was adopted in breach of the constitution. The court's decision meant that the amendments that came into force in summer 2006 are no longer valid, and that the norms of the 1996 Constitution have been restored. On 08 October 2010 President Viktor Yanukovych said Ukraine will not hold early parliamentary elections following the recent changes made to the country's constitution, which boosted the powers of the president.

On 11 March 2010, the Party of Regions, the Communists, the Lytvyn Bloc, and 16 non-aligned members of parliament (MPs) established the "Stability and Reform" ruling coalition in the Rada composed of 235 MPs. Also on 11 March 2010, the Rada confirmed President Yanukovych's nomination of Mykola Azarov as Prime Minister and replaced the entire cabinet of ministers. Opposition MPs and others argued the coalition had been formed illegally, as a coalition could only be composed of factions, not individuals. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled on April 8 that the Party of Regions-led coalition was constitutional, stating that individuals MPs do in fact have the right to take part in forming parliamentary coalitions. The ruling consolidated the position of the Azarov government.

In August 2011, the third-placed candidate in the 2010 Presidetial race, current Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tihipko, declared that his party, Strong Ukraine, might merge with the ruling Party of Regions. Some compared that possible merger with the Russian political model, where the ruling United Russia party absorbs smaller parties.

The Soviet legacy of provincialism in non-Russian republics such as Ukraine remains predominant among business and political elites. Regional and linguistic diversity negatively impacted the ability of political parties to garner support throughout the country, undermining national integration, as seen during the Eastern Ukrainian counter-revolution in 2014. Ukraine's parties remain structurally weak, with a top-down approach and absence of internal democracy, disrespect for voters and reliance on opaque sources of funding.