1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election

none March 2026 March 2026 Ukraine parliamentary 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election 1994 29 March 1998 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election 2002 All 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada 226 70.78% ( 5.03 pp) 3rd Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada 150x150px Petro Symonenko Communist Party of Ukraine 19 June 1993 Party list 86 seats, 13.57% 121 35 6,550,353 25.44% (PR) 11.87% 150x150px Viacheslav Chornovil People's Movement of Ukraine 4 December 1992 Party list 20 seats, 5.49% 46 26 2,498,262 9.70% (PR) 4.21% 150x150px Oleksandr Moroz Socialist Party – Peasant Party 1 November 1997 Ukraine's 92nd electoral district Kyiv Oblast 92 uk Виборчий округ 92 33 seats, 6.23% 34 1 2,273,788 8.83% (PR) 2.60% 150x150px Anatoliy Matviyenko People's Democratic Party (Ukraine) 24 February 1996 Ukraine's 17th electoral district Vinnytsia Oblast 17 uk Виборчий округ 17 New 28 New 1,331,460 5.17% (PR) New 150x150px Pavlo Lazarenko Hromada (political party) 22 March 1994 Ukraine's 40th electoral district Dnipropetrovsk Oblast 40 uk Виборчий округ 40 New 24 New 1,242,235 4.82% (PR) New 150x150px Vitaliy Kononov Party of Greens of Ukraine 9 October 1992 Party list 0 seats 0.27% 19 19 1,444,264 5.61% (PR) 5.34% 150x150px Leonid Kravchuk Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) — Party list New 17 New 1,066,113 4.14% (PR) New 150x150px Nataliya Vitrenko Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine 20 April 1996 Ukraine's 160th electoral district Sumy 160 uk Виборчий округ 160 New 16 New 1,075,118 4.18% (PR) New 340px Party-list results 340px Constituency results Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Moroz Socialist Party – Peasant Party Oleksandr Tkachenko Socialist Party – Peasant Party Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 29 March 1998.Nohlen Stöver 2010 1976 The Communist Party of Ukraine remained the largest party in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine), winning 121 of the 445 seats, but no party gained a majority of seats, resulting in a hung parliament that eventually resulted in elements of the left supportive of president Leonid Kuchma being placed in leadership positions. Poor perception of the economy and Kuchma's economic liberalisation programme was a key issue in the election, as was the perception that Kuchma and members of his government were closely connected with Ukrainian oligarchs and members of the Ukrainian mafia and that the Verkhovna Rada's deputies were largely corrupt. Ukraine's oligarch and mafia groups (including leading "clans" such as the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia, the Donetsk Clan and the Kyiv Seven) participated in the election through utilising political parties as front organisations. The 1998 election was the first Ukrainian parliamentary election to used a mixed-member proportional representation system, after the previous election's first-past-the-post system resulted in electoral chaos. The election was generally considered to be free and fair, though significant discrepancies occurred in Crimea, where members of the Crimean Tatar population were prevented from voting and engaged in violent clashes with police, and in the city of Odesa, where a series of events of electoral violence occurred as part of the simultaneous mayoral election. As a result of the election, no party formed a majority, and a standoff between the left and pro-Kuchma parties occurred for nearly four months before the election of Oleksandr Tkachenko, a member of the leftist bloc with financial connections to Kuchma's government, as Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. Following the election, two of Kuchma's major political opponents (Pavlo Lazarenko and Oleksandr Moroz) were either forced to leave the country amidst corruption charges or subjected to a campaign of media harassment. The election highlighted the civil rights of Crimean Tatars, which continued to be in flux amidst their repatriation from Central Asia. Background Ukraine became independent in 1991, amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The period since 1991 had, by 1998, been marked by an economic crisis. At the peak of this crisis, during the previous parliamentary election in 1994, doubts existed as to the feasibility of Ukraine's survival as an independent state, according to political scientists Sarah Birch and Andrew Wilson.Birch Wilson 1999 276 After Leonid Kuchma was elected as president that year, some improvements in the political situation began to take place. In particular were Russia–Ukraine relations, which had been strained as a result of disputes over the status of Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet, the supply of energy to Ukraine, and Ukraine's post-Soviet nuclear arsenal, which Kuchma saw relinquished with the finalisation of the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine adopted a post-Soviet constitution in June 1996,Birch 1998 146–147 with later amendments formally dating the next parliamentary election to March 1998.Birch Wilson 1999 276 The primary basis of Kuchma's support were the emerging business oligarchs (particularly the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia, a group of oligarchic and organised crime elements from Kuchma's native Dnipropetrovsk Oblast), and his presidency marked a "virtual corporate takeover" of Ukraine, according to Wilson. He had also initially been elected with the support of the left, who opposed the nation-building policies of Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma's programme, however, had based in economic liberalisation from the outset of his 1994 campaign, and efforts to reform Ukraine's economy intensified in the period prior to the election. This led leftists to abandon their original support of Kuchma early into his presidency, characterising him as a puppet of the International Monetary Fund.Wilson 2022 193–195 Oleksandr Moroz, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada before 1998 and leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, was a strong opponent of Kuchma's privatisations and the IMF, while Kuchma's links to international organisations such as the IMF and positive relations with the West buoyed his support.Gawdiak 2003 2 Continued poor economic performance was a leading factor in the election; a poll two weeks prior to the election indicted that 66.2% of respondents viewed Kuchma's economic reforms as a failure, and the two most pressing issues to voters polled were non-payment of wages by the state (33.5%) and unemployment (27.2%).Birch 1998 147 At 9.5%, the third-largest issue for voters was corruption.Birch 1998 147 Kuchma's presidency was marked by the growth of the Ukrainian mafia, with several formerly-communist officials from eastern Ukraine engaging with crime interests in order to enrich themselves.Wilson 2022 194–195 Another poll, conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, indicated that 59.6% of Ukrainians believed "almost all" or "most" People's Deputies were corrupt. Several parties were front organisations for major oligarchic-crime clans, including Hromada (tied to an anti-Kuchma branch of the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia led by Pavlo Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko), the Razom coalition (comprising the Party of Labour and the Liberal Party of Ukraine,Chesno representing the Donetsk Clan), the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) (connected to the Kyiv Seven and the ownership of FC Dynamo Kyiv) and the Party of Greens (which, despite having been founded as a legitimate party, was effectively sold by the party's leadership to banking interests prior to the election). Even parties which were not fronts for oligarchic or crime interests, such as the centre-right People's Movement of Ukraine (uk Народний рух України Narodnyi rukh Ukrainy no, abbreviated Rukh) and the leftist parties, had seats on their proportional representation lists occupied by individuals associated with such groups.Birch Wilson 1999 278 Electoral system The 1994 parliamentary election used a two-round system based on previous Soviet laws that had been designed for the one-party state, including stipulations that 50% of voters in each constituency turn out and that the successful candidate had one more vote than 50% of the turnout.Birch 1998 147 The results of this system had been chaotic, with constituencies taking as many as five rounds to elect a People's Deputy.Gawdiak 2003 1 A year after the 1994 election, 10% of seats in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) remained unfilled, and some were still vacant by the time of the 1998 election.Kazanskyi 2018 Following the chaos of the 1994 election, all parties save for the Communist Party of Ukraine (uk Комуністична партія України Komunistychna partiia Ukrainy no, abbreviated KPU) agreed that electoral reform was needed to establish a stable democratic system and simplify the electoral process. Early discussions on electoral reform focused on a mixed-member proportional representation similar to that which had been adopted by Russia for elections to the State Duma in 1993. The KPU initially opposed any adoption of proportional representation, but later supported it after recognising that proportional representation would be likely to increase the amount of seats they held in the Verkhovna Rada. The electoral reform law, adopted in September 1997, provided for a 50/50 split of seats in the Rada between single-member districts and party-list proportional representation seats, with the latter having a threshold of 4%. All turnout requirements were abolished as a result of the electoral reform, and, rather than crossing out all candidates which they opposed of (as was the system under the Soviet-era laws), voters were required to simply select the candidate they supported.Birch 1998 147 After the election, a number of provisions in the election reform were declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. These provisions were later amended.Gawdiak 2003 1 Electoral campaign The elevenMyagkov Ordeshook 2005 61 major parties had widely varying political positions during the electoral campaign, with most being opposed to Kuchma's government.Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 6 The eight parties ultimately elected into the Verkhovna Rada's proportional representation seats professed the following policies:Gawdiak 2003 7–10 Communist Party of Ukraine (uk Комуністична партія України Komunistychna partiia Ukrainy no, KPU): abolition of the presidency of Ukraine; establishment of the Russian language as the second state language of Ukraine; Ukrainian accession to the Union State; opposition to the economic liberalisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and NATO. The party's leader is Petro Symonenko. People's Movement of Ukraine (uk Народний рух України Narodnyi rukh Ukrainy no, Rukh): opposition to Kuchma's government and the left; support for economic and political reforms; pro-Western and centre-right. Highly-placed candidates on its party list included Viacheslav Chornovil (the party's leader and a former prisoner of conscience held by the Soviet Union), Minister of Foreign Affairs Hennadiy Udovenko, writer Ivan Drach and Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Socialist Party – Peasant Party (uk Соціалістична партія України – Селянська партія України Sotsialistychna partiia Ukrainy – Selianska partiia Ukrainy no, SPU–SelPU): Strengthened relations with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States; state control of critical industries; opposition to privatisation of land. As a political alliance, it included members of both the Socialist Party of Ukraine (led by Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Moroz) and the Peasant Party of Ukraine (led by Kateryna Vashchuk and also including Rouslan Bodelan and Anatoliy Franchuk); the two parties at times held divergent views, with the Peasant Party being pro-Kuchma. Party of Greens of Ukraine (uk Партія зелених України Partiia zelenykh Ukrainy no, PZU): Reduction of taxes; abolition of conscription; international neutrality; environmentalism. People's Democratic Party (uk Народно-демократична партія Narodno-demokratychna partiia no, NDP): Privatisation; market economy; abolition of parliamentary immunity; European integration while retaining positive relations with Russia and members of the CIS. It was very pro-Kuchma. Hromada (uk Громада no): 50% reduction of taxes; restructuring of the executive government; anti-corruption. The party was largely a personal vehicle for Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and a front organisation for the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia.Birch Wilson 1999 278 Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (uk Прогресивна соціалістична партія України Prohresyvna sotsialistychn partiia Ukrainy no, PSPU): abolition of the presidency; recognition of Belarus and Russia as Ukraine's strategic partners; granting worker cooperatives the exclusive right to nominate candidates for People's Deputies; strongly anti-IMF, anti-World Bank and anti-NATO; opposed to both the KPU and SPU–SelPU on the basis that neither were sufficiently left-wing. Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) (uk Соцiал-демократична партія України (об'єднана) Sotsial-demokratychna partiia Ukrainy (obiednana) no, SDPU(o)): Centrism; full employment; European integration while retaining positive relations with Russia. The party was a front organisation for the Kyiv Seven,Birch Wilson 1999 278 and contained several national communist figures, including former President Leonid Kravchuk and former Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk.Wilson 2022 186 Interventions by Kuchma thumb|President Leonid Kuchma (on left, pictured here in 1999) and his close allies have been accused of interfering in the 1998 election Despite only vaguely advising voters to vote "against the left",Birch Wilson 1999 279 Kuchma and individuals close to him have been accused by Birch and Wilson of significantly intervening in the 1998 election, both in order to create a spoiler effect for leftist partiesBirch Wilson 1999 279 and to ensure the victory of the pro-government People's Democratic Party, which was intended to exist as a people's party under the leadership of Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoitenko.Wilson 2022 186 Many of the parties contesting the election were intended to spoil the results of the leftist bloc. Among these was the Agrarian Party (established in opposition to the Peasant Party's then-undisputed control over the rural population) and three parties and political alliancesLaborious Ukraine, the Motherland Defenders Party and the All-Ukrainian Workers' Party were founded with the support of the government with the intention of undermining the KPU's support among trade unions and veterans. The KPU and SPU–SelPU accused the PSPU of being directly created and supported by Kuchma's government, and Communist and Socialist media regularly attacked it as such.Wilson Birch 1999 1043 The emergence of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko as a serious political opponent to Kuchma also led to Kuchma using legal measures to hinder him, including the instigating of corruption charges against him and the stripping of his parliamentary immunity. As a result of the prosecution, Lazarenko would eventually be forced to flee Ukraine before being arrested. Kuchma's government also used administrative and governmental resources to campaign for the NDP, to little success.Kuzio 2005 179–180 State television channels broadcast in favour of the NDP, and individuals tied to Kuchma oversaw the split between Hromada and Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party.Wilson 2022 198–199 Results thumb|left|Signatures claimed to belong to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) were among those used by parties to participate in the 1998 election A total of 3,962 candidates were registered ahead of the election, of whom 1,717 (43.34%) were independents.Riabets 1998 140 Thirty parties or political alliances contested the election in total. Low threshold existed for ballot access, requiring 200,000 signatures (of which 10,000 were to come from 14 of the 26 administrative divisions of Ukraine). Little effort was made by authorities to verify signatures; in one instance, a Sumy Oblast newspaper reported that it had found signatures belonging to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Chechen military commander and politician Dzhokhar Dudayev (both of whom were deceased by 1998) and President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, with all signatories declared as living in the same apartment block.Wilson Birch 1999 1042 The ultimate result was a victory for the left, with the KPU slightly expanding its plurality. Leftist parties were generally supported by those from the three easternmost oblasts of Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts), as well as, in the case of the KPU in particular, in southern Ukraine. The SPU–SelPU alliance failed to break through in the south, but found unexpected support in the east. Western Ukraine, as well as the three westernmost oblasts of left-bank Ukraine (Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy oblasts), were among the most unlikely oblasts to support the KPU.Harasymiw 2005 219 The SPU–SelPU alliance outperformed the KPU exclusively in Cherkasy Oblast (receiving 51.4%), but performed well across Ukraine, surpassing 30% of the vote in 12 oblasts. The Progressive Socialist Party was the next-highest-performing leftist party, but only managed to surpass 30% of the vote in Sumy Oblast. The Soyuz party, a leftist party in Crimea advocating for the region's annexation by Russia, was a notable case as a localist party in the left bloc that gained a significant portion of the region's vote (10.7%, behind only the KPU).Craumer Clem 1999 7 As in previous Ukrainian elections, ethnicity, language and religion also played a significant role in voting.Hinich Khmelko Ordeshook 1999 150 The elderly, those with low levels of income, ethnic Russians and those belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) being more likely to support leftist parties. By contrast, those who were not ethnic Russians, those who did not belong to the UOC(MP) and those who were employed were more likely to vote for national-democratic parties. Younger people, those with high levels of income and individuals living in central Ukraine tended to support centrist parties. Among the centrist parties, the People's Democratic Party was extremely unpopular in the south in favour of Hromada and the Greens were unpopular in eastern Ukraine.Harasymiw 2005 219–220 Many of the centrist parties were concentrated into specific regions; Hromada was widely supported in the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia's eponymous oblast,Craumer Clem 1999 8 while the SDPU(o) excelled in Zakarpattia as a result of both vote buying by the Kyiv SevenWilson 2022 186 and a local tradition of social democracy dating back to the 1930s. The Reforms and Order Party's support was largely concentrated in Lviv Oblast, though it failed to obtain a majority of the votes there. Among national-democratic and nationalist parties, Rukh saw as much dominance as the KPU on the left, being the only right-of-centre to surpass the 4% proportional representation threshold and winning nearly three times the vote as the next-largest right-wing party, the National Front (Ukraine) National Front uk Виборчий блок партій «Національний фронт» coalition. Rukhs support was largely concentrated in western Ukraine, particularly in Galicia and Rivne Oblast, though in other western oblasts it performed well enough to keep the leftist vote share below 20%.Craumer Clem 1999 10–11 The election was most humiliating of all for the pro-Kuchma People's Democratic Party, which won only 5% of the vote and 29 seats in the Verkhovna Rada. The People's Democratic Party had, prior to the election, already been in a state of disarray, with the party's liberal, reformist faction increasingly frustrated by its closeness to Kuchma. Although it would manage to grow dramatically in the initial period of coalition-building following the election, it would eventually collapse, splitting into several parties within a year of the election.Wilson 2022 186 right|300px KPU right|300px Rukh right|300px SPU–SelPU right|300px PZU right|300px NDP right|300px Hromada right|300px PSPU right|300px SDPU(o) <onlyinclude>File:Ukraine Verkhovna Rada 1998.svg Proportional Constituency Communist Party of Ukraine 6550353 84 3495711 37 121 +35 People's Movement of Ukraine 2498262 32 1500648 14 46 +26 Socialist Party – Peasant Party 2273788 29 1067267 5 34 +1 Party of Greens of Ukraine 1444264 19 196044 0 19 +19 People's Democratic Party 1331460 17 985770 11 28 +24 Hromada 1242235 16 880073 8 24 New Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine 1075118 14 231043 2 16 New Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) 1066113 14 450522 3 17 New Agrarian Party of Ukraine 978330 0 784287 9 9 New Reforms and Order Party 832574 0 455166 3 3 New Laborious Ukraine (GKU–UPS) 813326 0 123869 1 1 –1 National Front (KUN–UKRP–URP) 721966 0 642125 5 5 –10 Razom (LPU–PP) 502969 0 309371 1 1 –3 Forward Ukraine! (KDS–UKDP) 461924 0 129378 2 2 +2 Christian Democratic Party of Ukraine 344826 0 190783 2 2 +1 Bloc of Democratic Parties – NEP (DPU–PEV) 326489 0 275460 1 1 –1 Party of National Economic Development of Ukraine 250476 0 28418 0 0 New SLON – Social Liberal Association (Viche–MBR) 241367 0 112968 1 1 0 Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine 241262 0 204631 2 2 New All-Ukrainian Party of Workers 210622 0 57463 0 0 New Soyuz 186249 0 38467 1 1 New All-Ukrainian Party of Women's Initiatives 154650 0 18208 0 0 New Republican Christian Party 143496 0 70064 0 0 New Ukrainian National Assembly 105977 0 88136 0 0 –1 Social Democratic Party of Ukraine 85045 0 36670 0 0 –2 Motherland Defenders Party 81808 0 26286 0 0 New Party of Spiritual, Economic and Social Progress 53147 0 28418 0 0 New Party of Muslims of Ukraine 52613 0 1342 0 0 New Fewer Words (SNPU–DSU) 45155 0 65760 1 1 0 European Choice of Ukraine (LDPU–USDP) 37118 0 59474 0 0 0 Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine 17656 0 0 New Women's Party of Ukraine 15867 0 0 New Party of Slavic Unity of Ukraine 12470 0 0 0 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists 1944 0 0 0 Party of National Salvation of Ukraine 1544 0 0 0 Independents 11148333 111 111 –57 Vacant 5 5 Against all 1396592 1915531 821699 904106 0 37540092 37540092 Nohlen & Stöver, University of Essex Electoral violations and violence While the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the election, described the results as generally free and fair, the organisation noted that several instances of violence occurred during the election. These events largely occurred in the Crimean peninsula, located in the southeast of Ukraine, and the southern city of Odesa.Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 1 Most notably were events in Crimea, where members of the Crimean Tatar minority (who were being repatriated to Ukraine following their 1944 deportation to Central Asia) were blocked from voting and subjected to violence. At the time of the election, 85,000 (approximately 51.5%) of the 165,000 repatriated Crimean Tatars were non-citizens, with the majority (70,000, or 82.4% of non-citizen Crimean Tatars) of non-citizens being citizens of other Commonwealth of Independent States countries (primarily Uzbekistan).The remaining 15,000 non-citizen Crimean Tatars were stateless persons, at the time of a 30 March 1998 Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe–Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe report.Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1998 2 Prior to the election, the government of Ukraine did not grant permanent residents of Crimea the right to vote regardless of their citizenship status, a measure which had been undertaken in 1994, and the granting of permanent residence status to repatriated Crimean Tatars was only partially performed. Protests by Crimean Tatars occurred, leading to violent clashes with police, after the Verkhovna Rada refused to pass legislation allowing non-citizen Crimean Tatars to vote in parliamentary, regional and local elections. An emergency presidential decree was drafted with provisions allowing for non-citizen Crimean Tatars to vote, but Kuchma ultimately decided not to sign it on 26 March.Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 7, 10 Significant electoral violence also occurred in Odesa, where a polarised mayoral election between Eduard Hurvits and Rouslan Bodelan occurred simultaneously with the parliamentary election. Beginning in early 1998, a series of events of electoral violence occurred in the city, including the kidnappings of Leonid Kapeliushnyi,Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 7 chairman of the Odesa Municipal Electoral Commission, and the chairman of a district electoral commission, as well as an attack on Odesa City Council by an armed militia.Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1998 2 Ihor Svoboda, a Hurvits-aligned member of the Odesa Oblast Council notable for his activism against organised crime and drug trafficking, was also kidnapped and presumably killed,Kalandyrets 2005 and in one instance, a group of local journalists who filmed a campaign rally by Bodelan were later attacked and had their camera film stolen.Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 7 Bodelan and Hurvits accused each other of responsibility for the attacks, and on the day before the election, a court declared that Hurvits's candidacy was invalid.Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1998 2 Other electoral violations occurred during the election, particularly in the western Zakarpattia and Chernivtsi oblasts, where levels of invalid votes reached 5.9% and 4.9%, respectively. Blank votes reached a high in Sevastopol at 13.1%, in what researchers Peter R. Craumer and James I. Clem describe as likely having been caused by the city's affinity for Russia and dissatisfaction at being part of Ukraine.Craumer Clem 1999 7 Mykhailo Brodskyy, a candidate for People's Deputy and mayor of Kyiv, was arrested on 10 March. Brodskyy, who owned the anti-Kuchma Kievskiye Vedomosti, was accused of illegal trade and profits, and the CSCE noted that "critics" had accused police of arresting Brodskyy on politically-motivated charges.Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 7 Wilson has accused the SDPU(o) of engaging in widespread vote buying in rural Zakarpattia Oblast during the campaign.Wilson 2022 186 Following the election, Rukh and the Forward Ukraine alliance announced their intention to challenge election results in courts, citing irregularities.Gawdiak 2003 5 Aftermath thumb|The inclusion of Mustafa Dzhemilev (pictured here in 2010) on Rukhs electoral list led to widespread Crimean Tatar support for the party Kuchma and Rukh leader Viacheslav Chornovil, as well as other moderate politicians, noted that the results of the election, while a victory for the left, were not the most extensive possible victory.Gawdiak 2003 5 The results were disappointing for Rukh and the national democrats in general, with as they reached only 12.4% (only slightly above national results) in Kyiv, the party's traditional base outside of western Ukraine. Birch and Wilson describe the election as Chornovil's "last hurrah", noting that his romantic nationalism was under pressure from the pragmatism of younger Rukh members such as Oleksandr Lavrynovych and Yuriy Kostenko. The election highlighted problems related to the rights of repatriated Crimean Tatars and the abolition of provisions allowing for them to participate in elections and achieve representation at the regional level. As a result of Rukh advocating for a pro-Crimean Tatar policy and placing civil rights leader Dzhemilev at a high position on their party list, Crimean Tatars largely turned out to vote for Rukh.Wilson Birch 1999 1056–1057 A series of under-the-table bargains began in the days and months after the election, with the end result being the expansion of the NDP from its original position of 29 seats to a total of 93 seats. Kuchma's rivals were pushed out of the political scene in the months following the election: following his flight to the United States to escape corruption charges, the Verkhovna Rada voted to lift his parliamentary immunity in February 1999. Following Lazarenko's exile, newspapers published documents alleging that close Kuchma ally Volodymyr Horbulin had formulated a plan for a coordinated campaign against Hromada, utilising tax authorities, the police and the Prosecutor General. Moroz, who had been the sole major politician to vote against lifting Lazarenko's immunity, was subsequently subjected to a campaign of harassment by pro-Kuchma media. The pro-Kuchma parties blocked Moroz's attempts to regain the office of Verkhovna Rada Chairman for a period of nearly four months,Wilson 2022 201 with the Rada going through 19 rounds of voting before finally deciding on Oleksandr Tkachenko, a member of the Peasant Party and former Soviet apparatchik, on 7 July 1998.Birch Wilson 1999 280 A $70 million loan to an agricultural concern owned by Tkachenko was written off prior to his election as Chairman, leading Wilson to conclude that he was "widely assumed to be in the president's debt".Wilson 2022 201 In December 1998, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine issued a ruling, stating that elected People's Deputies could freely choose their party affiliation, rather than being constrained to the eight elected proportional representation parties. The NDP, buckling under the weight of its greatly-expanded membership, soon fractured into several parties, as did Hromada; they were later joined by the SPU–SelPU and, eventually, Rukh,Wilson 2022 186–187 which broke into two factions shortly before Chornovil's sudden death in March 1999.Wilson Birch 1999 1057 Notes References Bibliography Journal articles Birch Sarah Sarah Birch Wilson Andrew June 1999 The Ukrainian parliamentary elections of 1998 Electoral Studies 18 2 276–282 10.1016/S0261-3794(98)00050-X 0261-3794 1873-6890 Birch Sarah 1998 Electoral reform in Ukraine: The 1998 parliamentary elections Representation 35 2–3 146–154 10.1080/00344899808523032 0034-4893 1749-4001 Myagkov Mikhail Ordeshook Peter C. Peter Ordeshook 2005 The Trail of Votes in Ukraine's 1998, 1999, and 2002 Elections Post-Soviet Affairs 21 56–71 10.2747/1060-586X.21.1.56 1060-586X 1938-2855 Harasymiw Bohdan 2005 Elections in Post-Communist Ukraine, 1994–2004: An Overview Canadian Slavonic Papers 47 3–4 191–239 10.1080/00085006.2005.11092386 0008-5006 2375-2475 Hinich Melvin J. Melvin J. Hinich Khmelko Valeri Valeriy Khmelko Ordeshook Peter C. 1999 Ukraine's 1998 Parliamentary Elections: A Spatial Analysis Post-Soviet Affairs 15 149–185 10.1080/1060586X.1999.10641468 1060-586X 1938-2855 Craumer Peter R. Clem James I. 1999 Ukraine's Emerging Electoral Geography: A Regional Analysis of the 1998 Parliamentary Elections Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 40 1 1–26 10.1080/10889388.1999.10641097 1538-7216 1938-2863 Wilson Andrew Birch Sarah September 1999 Voting Stability, Political Gridlock: Ukraine's 1998 Parliamentary Elections Europe-Asia Studies 51 6 1039–1068 10.1080/09668139998624 0966-8136 1465-3427 153671 Kuzio Taras Taras Kuzio June 2005 Regime type and politics in Ukraine under Kuchma Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38 2 167–190 10.1016/j.postcomstud.2005.03.007 0967-067X 1873-6920 48609535 Books Nohlen Dieter Dieter Nohlen https://www.scienceopen.com/book?vid=da5d96c6-2042-4964-bfdc-a618d6f800e5 Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook Stöver Philip Nomos Publishing 2010 978-3-8329-5609-7 2070 10.5771/9783845223414 Wilson Andrew The Ukrainians: The Story of How a People Became a Nation Yale University Press 2022 978-0-300-27249-9 New New Haven and London 434 2022943778 https://cvk.gov.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/vibory1998_2.pdf Парламент України: вибори–98: Інформаційно–аналітичне видання. Частина 2 Central Election Commission 1998 966-95532-0-2 Riabets M. M. Kyiv 710 uk Parliament of Ukraine: Elections '98: An Informational and Analytical Publication (Part 2) https://web.archive.org/web/20241223121524/https://www.cvk.gov.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/vibory1998_2.pdf 23 December 2024 live News articles and other resources Блок "Партія праці та Ліберальна партія - РАЗОМ" Party of Labour and Liberal Party - RAZOM Bloc https://www.chesno.org/party/249/ live https://web.archive.org/web/20250427103546/https://www.chesno.org/party/249/ 27 April 2025 27 March 2026 Chesno uk Chesno Kazanskyi Denys 30 November 2018 Parliamentary chronicles https://ukrainianweek.com/parliamentary-chronicles/ live https://web.archive.org/web/20251018203627/https://ukrainianweek.com/parliamentary-chronicles/ 18 October 2025 27 March 2026 The Ukrainian Week Gawdiak Natalie April 2003 The 1998 Ukrainian Parliamentary Election https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2019669442/2019669442.pdf live https://web.archive.org/web/20251118034434/https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2019669442/2019669442.pdf 18 November 2025 27 March 2026 Law Library of Congress April 1998 UKRAINE'S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION: March 29, 1998 https://www.csce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/1998Ukraineelections.pdf live https://web.archive.org/web/20250301205910/https://www.csce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/1998Ukraineelections.pdf 1 March 2025 27 March 2026 Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998 30 March 1998 Preliminary Joint Statement issued on 30 March 1998 by the OSCE and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly https://www.oscepa.org/en/documents/election-observation/election-observation-statements/ukraine/statements-25/1483-1998-parliamentary/file live https://web.archive.org/web/20260217204058/https://www.oscepa.org/en/documents/election-observation/election-observation-statements/ukraine/statements-25/1483-1998-parliamentary/file 17 February 2026 27 March 2026 Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1998 Kalandyrets Petro 19 December 2005 Пам'ятну дошку Ігорю Свободі відкрили в Одесі Ihor Svoboda memorial plaque unveiled in Odesa https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/938085.html live https://web.archive.org/web/20260116083254/https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/938085.html 16 January 2026 27 March 2026 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty uk External links Central Election Commission of Ukraine Category:Parliamentary elections in Ukraine Parliamentary Ukraine Ukraine Category:3rd Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada