Notes

Ukraine has changed its electoral law
numerous times. The first two elections to the parliament
in 1990 and 1994 employed a single-member district
majoritarian system. The Verkhovna Rada elections
in 1998 and 2002 used a mixed system with single-
member districts and proportional representation. The
parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2007 were purely
proportional representation. Finally, the elections in
2012 went back to the mixed system. This article argues
that the use of proportional representation has facilitated
extensive manipulation in the Ukrainian political system
through the creation of “party projects” and by severing
the link between parliamentarians and their constituents.

Following the adoption of the 50:50 proportional representation/
single-member district system, the campaign to adopt a fully proportional
system continued. This idea became popular among social organizations.
At roundtable meetings discussing the electoral law, the majority of experts
supported the transition to a proportional system.
Proportional Representation in Ukraine. Citing international experience and foreign experts, particularly Maurice Duverger and Arend Lijphart, the supporters of the proportional
system used the following arguments:

For ordinary citizens:

The proportional electoral system dominates in countries which
have high-quality electoral democracies.

Majoritarian electoral systems dominate in countries with
authoritarian political regimes, while in democratic countries it
inevitably leads to a two-party system.

Under mixed systems, there is a clear tendency in which the
further a country moves along the path of democracy, the greater
the role of the proportional system.

For experts:

The proportional system creates a better-structured parliament,
forming long-lasting fractions and a parliamentary majority.

The proportional system increases the role of political parties and
a politically-structured society.

The introduction of the proportional system fits global trends:
almost all countries of western and central Europe use
proportional electoral systems.

The majoritarian system to a greater degree facilitates the misuse
of administrative resources for fraud than do proportional systems.

The proportional system strengthens the political responsibility
of political parties.

But the results of switching to a proportional system seen above did not live up to the initial expectations. And new problems rose to the fore after already becoming visible in the mixed system.
The Transformation of Parties into “Political Projects”
One of the main arguments had been that the proportional representation system would optimize the number of political parties. In order to cross
the electoral threshold to enter parliament, small parties would be forced
to unite with other small parties or join larger parties. At the same time, the
system would not lead to an effective two-party system such as the one that
defines the majoritarian system of the U.S. However, as practice showed
in Ukraine, dropping the majoritarian system not only did not slow the
process of creating new parties, but it weakened almost all existing parties.
During elections under the majoritarian system, parties that sought
to win a majority of votes had to nominate effective politicians in almost
every district. Therefore the political parties were interested in searching
out and supporting strong representatives and this process strengthened
the party. But the first steps toward dismantling the majoritarian system
provoked intra-party battles with renewed intensity. Now the main requirement for winning a seat in parliament was not working in one’s district, but one’s position on the party list. And since the list is formed by the party leaders at the top, the existing party leaders became afraid that newcomers would try to remove them from their positions and therefore sought to
ensure that they would not face any potential competitors. As a result, there
was fighting and splits within the parties.



Socialist Party of Ukraine
One prominent example is the Socialist Party of Ukraine, led at the time
of the adoption of the new law by Moroz, who strongly supported the use
of proportional representation. Conflicts with the leadership of the party
led to the following splits:
• On February 3, 1996, a group of radical socialists led by Natalia
Vitrenko left the party and established the Progressive Socialist
Party.
• A new conflict arose in 1999 when Ivan Chizhom and Valerii
Arestov created an intra-party “socialist platform.” Inclined
to compromise with the president, on February 19, 2000, the
Socialist Party of Ukraine political council expelled the organizers from the party for activities that could “lead to a party split and weaken its authority.” The outcasts created the All-Ukrainian
Association of Leftists “Justice.”
• In June 2006 Yury Lutsenko left the party in protest against
Moroz’s decision to bring the Socialist Party into the “Anti-Crisis
Coalition” with the Party of Regions and the Communist Party
of Ukraine. Lutsenko in March 2007 created a new social movement called Popular Self-Defense and on April 15, 2007, on the base of the party Forward Ukraine and the Christian Democratic
Union, created the electoral bloc entitled Yury Lutsenko’s Popular Self-Defense. Also, the Socialist Party expelled Iosif Vinsky on October 17, 2006, for criticizing the formation of the Anti-Crisis Coalition; later he formed the Popular Power party.
• In 2009 Aleksandr Baranivski and Stanislav Nikolaenko left
the party over disagreements with Moroz. On April 4, 2009
Nikolenko accepted the invitation of Ivan Chizhto head the left-
center party Justice.
• On December 15, 2011 Nikolai Rud’kovsky left the party over
disagreements with Moroz. He had been Moroz’s main competitor in the elections for the party chairman in the summer of 2011. Later he joined the Party of the New Generation of Ukraine and
won election to the parliament as a non-party candidate. Losing influential politicians forced the Socialist Party to run lower quality candidates in the single-member districts. Even though Demokratizatsiya they nominated similar numbers of candidates in the elections of 1994, their number of victories fell. In 1994, the party won in 14 districts, in 1998 in 5, and in 2002, only 2. In the majority of cases, candidates won fewer votes in their districts than did the party on the PR
portion of the ballot. “With the exit of Vinsky, Nikolaenko, Tsushko and a host of other
people, the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) essentially became a “leadership club” of Oleksandr Moroz,” according to political scientist Vladimi Tsybul’ko. But the public weight of party leader Moroz soon was not sufficient to compensate for the negative influence of the departures from
the party. The consequences were visible in the results of the party lists: In
1998, the SPU-SelPU won 8.5%, in 2002, the SPU won 6.87%, and in 2006, it won 5.69%. Moroz’s decision for the SPU to join the Anti-Crisis Coalition further damaged the party’s rating and in the 2007 elections, it received just 2.86% and did not cross the barrier required to enter parliament. Although several small leftist parties merged with the socialists,
their support was not enough to overcome the losses. In the parliamentary
elections of 2012, the results were even worse: 0.45% and the party did
not win even one single-member district.