National democratic

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.

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.Basic electoral statistics 2014 extraordinary parliamentary election
, Central Election Commission of Ukraine In the nationwide (October 2015) local elections this number had grown to 132 political parties.Reform Watch - Oct. 1, 2015
Kyiv Post (Oct. 2, 2015)
Rhinos, dill and hidden threats confuse voters in Kyiv
Kyiv Post (Oct. 2, 2015)

Many parties in Ukraine have very small memberships and are unknown to the general public. Party membership in Ukraine is lower than 1% of the population eligible to vote (compared to an average 4.7% in the European Union). National parties currently not represented in Ukraine's national parliament Verkhovna Rada do have representatives in municipal councils. 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.Parliament passes law on parliamentary elections
Kyiv Post (November 17, 2011) Ukrainian society's trust of political parties is very low overall. According to an April 2014 poll by Razumkov Centre 14.7%. According to a February 2020 poll by again Razumkov Centre, more than 70% of respondents said they rather or completely did not trust political parties.

The Ukrainian oligarchs play a key role in sponsoring of political parties and participation in every day politics.Ukraine’s oligarchs jostle for influence with President Zelensky
Financial Times (19 February 2020)

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) and in two-thirds of the raions of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.Link to a pdf-fil
INTERIM REPORT 2015 Ukrainian local elections
OSCE (9 October 2015)This year, 12 new parties have been created. 50 changed their names
Civil movement "Chesno" (13 October 2020) This means that 10,000 signatures needs to be collected in these areas. Including in Crimea, although Ukraine lost control of this territory in 2014 (to Russia). (The only way to fulfill this norm is to get signatures of Ukrainian citizens living elsewhere in Ukraine with Crimean residence.) Then within six months the party must establish regional offices in a majority of the 24 oblasts.Ukraine's Local Elections: New law, old problems
by Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak, New Eastern Europe (22 October 2015) In practice these offices rarely stay active and open in-between elections. Because of the procedural difficulties of registering a party the practice of renaming existing political forces is widespread. (For instance, from January to September 2020 50 parties changed their name.) In practice this means that long career politicians in Ukraine regularly switch to a new party.

10 years in a row not nominating candidates for national parliamentary and presidential elections is a legal ground for liquidating a party.

Ukraine’s election law forbids outside financing of political parties or campaigns.

All data on any legal political parties as any other public organizations in Ukraine is kept at the Single Registry ( uk, Єдиний реєстр громадських формувань, ''Yedynyi reyestr hromadskykh formuvan''), with online version of which provided by the Ministry of Justice. On 1 January 2020 349 political parties were in this register.Non-partisan Ukraine
The Ukrainian Week (24 June 2020)

Major parties and political camps

There have developed two major movements in the Ukrainian parliament since its independence:
*A pro-Western and pro-European general liberal national democrats 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 FatherlandAfter the parliamentary elections in Ukraine: a tough victory for the Party of Regions
, Centre for Eastern Studies (7 November 2012)) as its frontrunners;Communist and Post-Communist Parties in Europe
by Uwe Backes and Patrick Moreau, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, (page 396) UDAR replaced the Our Ukraine Bloc in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election