Elections Update

By. O. Burlyuk and Dmetryo Fedoruk

On March 26, 2006 parliamentary and local elections were held in Ukraine based, for the first time in Ukrainian history, on the proportional representation system. The proportional representation system, a single nation-wide electoral district with votes allocated to political parties or election blocs r ather than to individual candidates, was implemented by recent constitutional reform.¹

Forty-five political parties and blocks endeavored to win the 3% of votes necessary to receive representation in the parliament, but only five of them managed to do so. According to the official results announced by the Central Election Commission on April 10th, the Pro-Russian Party of Regions won 32.14% of the vote; the three more western oriented parties - the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Our Ukraine Bloc and the Socialist Party of Ukraine - won, respectively, 22.29%, 13.95% and 5.69% of the vote; and the Communist Party of Ukraine won 3.66%.