The 2002 parliamentary elections in Ukraine: Democratization or authoritarianism?

The 2002 parliamentary elections, the third since Ukraine became an independent state in 1991, falling towards the end of President Leonid Kuchma’s second term of office, marked a new stage in Ukraine’s progress in democratization. Although the elections were conducted using the same election law as in 1998 (dividing parliament into equal groups elected by proportional and majoritarian representation), the context was radically different. The 2002 elections were the prelude to the 2004 presidential elections and Kuchma’s retirement from office and pitted for the first time the left and right opposition against the pro-presidential centre. Both sides were radicalized either by the ‘Kuchmagate’ scandal (the opposition) or in the search for immunity from prosecution (Kuchma and the ‘oligarchs’). The elections showed that Ukraine is the only CIS state with a large pro-Western reform movement, Viktor Yushchenko’s ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc, which came first in the proportional half of the election. The impact of ethno-cultural and regional factors continued to influence the outcome of the election by inhibiting the popularity of reformist forces such as Our Ukraine in eastern Ukraine.