Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine , 2009 The founding congress of the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine (the predecessor of the Party of Regions) was held on 26 October 1997 in
Kyiv. and on the 27th of that month the 1st Party Congress took place, which adopted the electoral party list and platform for the next elections. On 13 January 1998, a parliamentary faction was created in the
parliament of Ukraine. It was known as the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine and was headed by
Gennadiy Samofalov. During the
1998 parliamentary elections, the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine won 0.90% of the votes. The party was among the top 10 in
Chernivtsi and
Donetsk Oblasts.
Volodymyr Rybak was the winner of constituency number 45 in Donetsk Oblast. During the 2nd Party Congress that took place in two stages during the spring of 1999, the party decided to support candidate
Leonid Kuchma for the next presidential elections. It was recommended that the candidate should include in his election campaign some of the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine's policy proposals, including one on granting the
Russian language official status. In the summer of 1999, the party entered the "Our choice – Leonid Kuchma" electoral bloc, consisting of 23 parties and led by
Yevhen Kushnaryov, who endorsed incumbent
president Leonid Kuchma in the
presidential election of 1999. Azarov was replaced by his deputy and at that time Vice Prime Minister
Volodymyr Semynozhenko. after several deputies defected from their original faction. Critics claimed the deputies were "lured away" from those other factions by pressure, and analysts claimed most of them had nothing to do with the new party. Nine out of seventeen members of the faction had their political and business roots in the
Donetsk region. On 20 March 2001, Solidarity announced it would "be as a single bloc". During the
Ukrainian parliamentary election the party was a member of the
For United Ukraine electoral bloc. It was then led by
Volodymyr Semynozhenko. From 21 November 2002 until 7 December 2004,
Viktor Yanukovych was
Prime Minister of Ukraine. At a congress held on 19 April 2003, Yanukovych was elected party leader, succeeding Semynozhenko. At that time, the party had 20 seats in parliament.
Electoral breakthrough The party shifted its political ideology to the
left and became much more
populist in nature before the
2004 Ukrainian presidential election and, as a result, Yanukovych won over a large part of the
Communist party's electorate in eastern Ukraine. The party's stated platform included making
Russian a second
official language in Ukraine, moving towards a pro-Russian foreign policy, and increasing social spending. It also advocated a regionalist ideology, and many members supported making Ukraine a
federation. The Party of Regions moved into opposition after Viktor Yanukovych, its chosen candidate, lost the 2004 presidential election. Yanukovych first claimed an electoral victory, but strong allegations of
electoral fraud triggered a series of events commonly known as the
Orange Revolution. In the re-run of the presidential election ordered by the country's
Supreme Court, Viktor Yanukovych lost the election to
Viktor Yushchenko. The Party claimed to be a victim of a political persecution campaign organized by the new government, in part because
Borys Kolesnykov, the head of the regional party branch and of the
Donetsk Oblast Council, was arrested in April 2005 and charged with criminal extortion. The Party of Regions claimed this was an act of political repression, while the authorities believed that Kolesnykov had links to
organized crime and his arrest was a purely criminal matter. The
Council of Europe called the investigation "in full compliance with European standards". Kolesnykov has since been cleared of charges and released from pre-trial detention. The party signed a collaboration agreement in 2005 with
Russia's "
United Russia".
American consultant
Paul J. Manafort has advised the party and Yanukovych since 2005.
2006 parliamentary election results In the
parliamentary elections held on 26 March 2006, the party gained 32.14% On 19 January 2007,
Yevhen Kushnaryov, a high-ranking member of the Party of Regions, died in
Izium as a result of an accidental gunshot wound received while hunting. In mid-2007, the
Ukrainian Republican Party and
Labour Ukraine merged into and became part of the Party of Regions.
2007 parliamentary election results In the
parliamentary elections held on 30 September 2007, the party won 175 seats (losing 11 seats) out of 450 seats with 34.37% of the total national vote. the
Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT). He noted: "We are ready to unite, but only on the base of the program on struggle with crisis". The previous day, the deputy leader of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction, Andriy Portnov, said that the union of his political force with the Party of Regions was highly improbable, but that it could be possible after the
next Ukrainian presidential elections.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko stated on 17 March 2009 that her bloc was ready to join efforts with the Party of Regions to pass certain bills in the
Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada). Tymoshenko said, "You are a representative of the Regions Party, [and] I represent the BYuT. It's time to join efforts for the benefit of the country." On 30 March 2009, Victor Yanukovych stated he did not believe in the possibility of forming a coalition with the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc in the current parliament. At the same time, he added that "it would be necessary to agree on main issues" concerning amendments to the
Constitution of Ukraine involving local self-government reform, judicial reform and clear division of authority among President, government and parliament. According to Yanukovych, talks with the BYuT were still ongoing in late May 2008. In early June talks to build a
national unity government to address the
economic crisis collapsed, and Yulia Tymoshenko accused Yanukovych of betrayal, saying: "He unilaterally, without warning anyone, quit the negotiation process, making a loud political statement, killing the merger and the chances for Ukraine." In September 2009
Member of Parliament Vasyl Kiselev was expelled from the party and the political council of the Party of Regions. Kiselev was expelled "for violation of provisions and demands of the charter of the Party of Regions and harming the reputation of the party." In September 2009
Mykola Azarov announced the creation of the
Anti-Fascist Forum of Ukraine, the chairmen of which were Dmytro Shentsev (member of parliament for
Kharkiv) and the head of the Luhansk Region State Administration, Valeriy Holenko.
Yanukovych presidency , 31 October 2010) The Party of Regions endorsed Viktor Yanukovych as their candidate for the
2010 presidential election. The party intended to create a new coalition in the
Verkhovna Rada and form a new
government if Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential elections. Yanukovych was elected
President of Ukraine on 7 February 2010. On 19 February the
Ukrainian parliament terminated the powers of Ukrainian
Member of Parliament (MP) Yanukovych, in his place #179 on the electoral list of the Party of Regions at the
2007 early parliamentary elections. Tamara Yehorenko was registered as an MP by the
Central Election Commission of Ukraine on 26 February. On 3 March, Ukrainian President Yanukovych suspended his membership in the Party — Yanukovych was barred by the
Constitution from heading a political party — and handed over leadership in the party and in the parliamentary faction to
Mykola Azarov. The Party of Regions elected Azarov as its new Chairman at its 12th congress on 23 April 2010. Seven extra deputies (four of whom were
Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) members) joined the Party of Regions faction in October 2010. In March 2011 five more former BYuT deputies joined the faction. By late November 2012 the Party of Regions faction consisted of 195 lawmakers (20 more than the 175 elected in September 2007). It was the only party that won representatives in all
Ukrainian oblasts where elections were held, and it won the most votes in all but four of those oblasts (the four oblasts where it did not were situated in
Western Ukraine). In
Crimea, particularly in 2010–2014, the Party of Regions was nicknamed "
Makedonians" because the Crimean Prime Ministers
Vasyl Dzharty and
Anatolii Mohyliov were associated with the "
Makiivka-
Donetsk clan." In September 2010, the party was planning to sign a memorandum on cooperation with
China's
Communist Party. On 14 October 2010, the Party of Regions formed a cooperative arrangement with the
Socialists and Democrats European parliamentary group. During Yanukovych's presidency, both he and the Party of Regions were accused of trying to create a "controlled democracy" in Ukraine and of trying to "destroy" the main opposition party
BYuT to do so, but both denied those charges.
2012 parliamentary election results In August 2011
Strong Ukraine and
People's Party announced that both parties aimed to merge with the Party of Regions. The merger between People's Party and Party of Regions did not materialise, but Strong Ukraine and Party of Regions merged on 17 March 2012. Former Strong Ukraine leader
Serhiy Tyhypko was unanimously elected Party of Regions deputy chairman and member of the Party of Regions political council the same day. Party of Regions
parliamentarian Olena Bondarenko had stated in early March 2012 that Party of Regions, Strong Ukraine party and "another party" planned to hold a unity congress on 17 March. No additional third party merged with the Party of Regions on 17 March 2012; according to Ukrainian media Tyhypko had personally prevented a merger of
United Centre with the Party of Regions in March 2012. In October 2011 a cooperation agreement was signed in
Astana between the
Kazakhstani
Nur Otan and the Party of Regions. In late 2011, the party's popularity dropped in opinion polls below 20%, mainly because the party was losing votes to the
Communist Party of Ukraine. In April 2012, the top PR consultancy
Burson-Marsteller was hired to represent the interests of the Party of Regions, "to help them communicate its activities as the governing party of Ukraine, as well as to help it explain better its position on the
Yulia Tymoshenko case", as explained by Robert Mack, a senior manager at Burson-Marsteller. In the
October 2012 parliamentary elections the party won 72 seats and 30% of the votes under
party-list proportional representation (falling from 34% in
2007 and 32% in
2006) and another 115 by winning 115 simple-majority constituencies (it had competed in 204 of the 225 constituencies); this sum gave them a total of 187 seats and 41.56% of the 450 seats in the
Ukrainian Parliament. The party had lost about 2 million voters compared with the
previous election. On 12 December 2012 the party formed a
parliamentary faction of 210 deputies. At least 18 Party of Regions deputies have criminal ties, according to
Hennadiy Moskal, deputy head of Parliament's Committee on Organized Crime and Corruption. In June 2013, 148
people's deputies of Ukraine signed a
letter to the
Polish Sejm asking to recognize the
Volhynian tragedy as a genocide. A total of 119 of those parliamentarians were members of Party of Regions, while other 23 were from the
Communist Party of Ukraine.
Post-Yanukovych presidency Revolution of Dignity From November 2013, protests against Yanukovych's rule evolved into the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989, known as
Euromaidan which led to the
Revolution of Dignity. Two main goals of Euromaidan were the removal of President Yanukovych and the calling of
snap elections. In late January 2014, the party's symbol and activities were banned in the
Chernivtsi,
Ternopil, and
Ivano-Frankivsk regions, although there was no legal basis for these bans, since in Ukraine only a court can ban the activities of a political force. The Party of Regions faction in
Zhytomyr announced its dissolution on 19 February 2014. On 22 February 2014, the
Ukrainian parliament voted to impeach the honorary chairman of the Party of Regions, Viktor Yanukovych, as President of Ukraine. Out of the 38 PoR deputies present, 36 voted in favor of ousting Yanukovych, while two did not take part in the vote. Simultaneously, both Yanukovych and former Prime Minister
Mykola Azarov fled to
Russia. On 24 February 2014, faction leader
Oleksandr Yefremov declared that the party was moving into the opposition. On 25 February 2014,
Anatoliy Kinakh and 32 other mostly former PoR deputies created the parliamentary faction
Economic Development. On 28 March 2014, Yanukovych asked the Party of Regions to exclude him. The next day, at a party congress, the party nominated
Mykhailo Dobkin as its presidential candidate for the
2014 Ukrainian presidential election.
Mykhailo Dobkin was the Party of Regions' candidate in the
snap presidential election of 25 May 2014, and received only 3 percent of the vote. On 3 June 2014, another twenty Party of Regions deputies left the party's parliamentary faction. Including this change, the faction's strength was reduced from 210 deputies (at its highest point on 12 December 2012) to 80 deputies by 6 June 2014. In the following months many former members of the Party of Regions became objects of the so-called "trash bucket challenge", where Ukrainian officials dumped images of the former PoR members into garbage bins and other trash containers.
Criminal case against deputies/party members support for separatism On September 17, 2014, amidst the ongoing
war in Donbas, a group of 24
people's deputies of Ukraine from the Party of Regions and the
Communist Party of Ukraine met with
Sergey Naryshkin, the
chairman of the
Russian State Duma. On September 25, 2014, the Central Investigation Administration of the Ukrainian
Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case against those deputies, charging them with infringement on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Ukrainian press claimed that during the days around the February
2014 Ukrainian revolution, several party members called for the disintegration of Ukraine and for a union with the
Russian Federation. News outlets claimed that
Oleksandr Yefremov, leader of the Ukrainian parliamentary faction, was in full support of these proposed actions, and that
Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of the Supreme Council of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea went to
Luhansk to support these actions.
2014 parliamentary election, disintegration and ban On 14 September 2014, the Party of Regions officially announced their choice not to participate in the
2014 parliamentary elections; the party deemed the election as lacking legitimacy because the residents of the
Donbas could not vote in the election. Many individual members of Party of Regions ended up as candidates of the
Opposition Bloc. By the summer of 2015, most representatives of the party in 2014 had become members of
Opposition Bloc,
Revival or
Our Land. According to Ukrainian media research from February 2016, 22% of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc representatives in regional councils and 12% of the party's parliamentary deputies were former members of the Party of Regions. In the
2020 local elections, former Party of Regions members ran mainly as candidates of the
Opposition Platform — For Life,
Opposition Bloc,
Kernes Bloc — Successful Kharkiv,
Trust Deeds and
Servant of the People parties. Following the
2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and
Vladimir Konstantinov's announcement that the Party of Regions Crimean branch would be reorganized, many of its members joined the
United Russia party. Officially — according to the
TASS news agency and Konstantinov — there is no succession of the United Russia Crimean branch from the Party of Regions Crimean branch, but according to several local news resources from Sevastopol, the transfer was in fact organized by former activists of the Party of Regions and
Russian Unity. As of July 2019, the Party of Regions' former website redirected to “Golos Pravdy”, a pro-Russia blog website which the
Atlantic Council considers to be linked to
Fancy Bear and which is run by politicians that fled Ukraine in 2014. After the
Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many former members of the Party of Regions supported the Russian side. A number of city leaders in
Russian-occupied territories were accused of
collaboration and high treason for their cooperation with the
Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. For instance,
Galina Danilchenko, a deputy in
Melitopol who was part of the Party of Regions and the
Opposition Bloc, was proclaimed by the Russians as “acting mayor of the city” on 12 March 2022 with support from the Russian army. The mayor of Melitopol,
Ivan Fedorov, had been arrested by the Russian military the previous day. In
Kupiansk, mayor
Gennady Matsegora of the
Opposition Platform — For Life party voluntarily surrendered the city to the Russian armed forces. Many former members of the Party of Regions on the ground were also appointed by Russian troops as heads of
civil administrations in the occupied territories. On 21 February 2023, the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned the Party of Regions. This ban was initiated by the
Ministry of Justice and the
Security Service of Ukraine. Because of the
Russo-Ukrainian War (leading to loss of Ukrainian government control in parts of the country), no local elections have been held in some areas since the
2010 Ukrainian local elections; as such, the Party of Regions deputies
in those territories still have their mandate. ==Election results==