Impediments to the Emergence of Political Parties in Ukraine

Abstract

This article analyses why, after a quarter of century of post-Soviet transition, political parties in Ukraine remain weak. Ukraine's newly elected President Petro Poroshenko and his ally Kyiv City Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko both lead virtual political parties. The weakness of Ukrainian political parties is analysed through five impediments to their development: Soviet political culture; corruption and cynicism; provincial elites; regional and linguistic diversity; and weak party structure. The Soviet legacy has left an ideological wasteland in Eurasia upon which it has proven difficult to build political parties. The absence of pre-Soviet party roots from which to draw makes Eurasia different from the three Baltic States and Eastern Europe, while the late Soviet 'era of stagnation' and rapid, often violent and corrupt drive to a market economy in the 1990s deepened cynicism and corruption. The Soviet legacy of provincialism in non-Russian republics such as Ukraine remains predominant among business and political elites. Regional and linguistic diversity has negatively impacted on the ability of political parties to garner support throughout the country, undermining national integration, as seen during the Eastern Ukrainian violent counter-revolution in Donetsk, home base of the Party of Regions. Ukraine's parties remain structurally weak in their top-down approach and there is an absence of internal democracy, disrespect for voters and reliance on opaque sources of funding.

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