People's Movement of Ukraine

People's Movement of Ukraine Народний Рух України
President	Andriy Kornat[1]
Founded	9 February 1990; 34 years ago (1990-02-09)[2]
Headquarters	Kyiv
Youth wing	Young Activists of the Popular Rukh[3]
Membership (2016)	35,000[4][needs update]
Ideology	Ukrainian nationalism[5][6][7] Liberalism[8][9] Conservatism[10] Liberal conservatism[11]
Political position	Centre-right[12]
Colours	Blue, yellow
Slogan	Statehood, Democracy, Reforms
Verkhovna Rada	0 / 450
Lviv Oblast Council	6 / 84
Website
rukh.team
Politics of Ukraine Political parties Elections

The People's Movement of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Народний Рух України, romanized: Narodnyi Rukh Ukrayiny) is a Ukrainian political party and the first opposition party in Soviet Ukraine. Often it is simply referred to as the Movement (Ukrainian: Рух, Rukh). The party under the name Rukh was an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP) until 2013. It is considered to have played a key role in Ukraine regaining its independence in 1991.^[13][14][15]

Rukh gathers most of its voters and support from Western Ukraine. In November 2016, the party had 35,000 members.^[4]

History

Public movement

Initially organized as the "People's Movement of Ukraine for Perestroika", Rukh was founded in September 6–8, 1989 as a civil-political movement as there were no other political parties allowed in the Soviet Union but the Communist Party. The founding of Rukh was made possible due to Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost policies.^[16] The program and statutes of the movement were proposed by the Writers Association of Ukraine and were published in the journal Literary Ukraine (Literaturna Ukraina) on 16 February 1989. The organization has its roots in Ukrainian dissidents — the most notable of them being Viacheslav Chornovil — yet not excluding the fact that it was accepting various other politically oriented members from liberal communists to integralist nationalists. From March to September 1989 numerous constituent party conferences took place across Ukraine. The first Constituent Congress of the "People's Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction" took place on 8–10 September 1989 in Kyiv. Elected as the first leader of the movement was the Ukrainian poet and screenwriter Ivan Drach.

Appearance of the organization coincided with dismissal of

The official Soviet press and government portrayed members as anti-Semites at first.^[18]

The movement's biggest public, political, cultural, and social actions were:

• Act Zluky (Unification act) on 22 January 1919. According to the Department of Internal Affairs (Ukrainian SSR
  ) there were only 450,000 participants, while the organizers claimed that there were between four and five million.
• Mass excursions (1990) – festivities near Nikopol and Zaporizhzhia to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Zaporozhian Sich from 7 September through 12.
• Various activities near Berestechko, Baturyn, Lubny, and Khotyn.

At first the movement aimed at supporting Gorbachev's reforms,^[16] later the People's Movement of Ukraine was instrumental in conducting an independence referendum in the Ukrainian SSR. This was partially due to the Russification policies of the Soviet Union when the USSR Supreme Soviet officially announced the Russian language as the singular official state language of the country in 1989. During Rukh's existence within the Soviet Union, its members were threatened and intimidated.^[16] In the western oblasts "Rukh" became colloquially known as an abbreviation for the call Save Ukraine, fellows! (Рятуйте Україну, Хлопці!).^[19][20][21]

Political party

The movement initially registered by the Ministry of Justice on 9 February 1990 as the political party. After the creation of the

In the March

From 28 February – 1 March 1992 the third Party Congress took place during which a schism within Rukh was avoided by electing a leadership triad of Ivan Drach, Mykhailo Horyn, and Vyacheslav Chornovil. The new deputy leaders were M. Boychyshyn, O. Burakovsky, V. Burlakov, and O. Lavrynovych. The "Institute of Associative Membership in the Movement" was formally recognized as dissolved due to both the URP and DemPU declaring themselves as supporters of state president Leonid Kravchuk. The People's Movement of Ukraine declared its parliamentary opposition to the government and in January 1992 re-registered due to substantial changes in its statutes. Soon Ivan Drach left the party, followed by the resignation of Mykhailo Horyn in June 1992 together with V. Burlakov. Horyn was soon elected as leader of the Ukrainian Republican Party. In December 1992 Rukh's IV Party Congress took place which once again revised its statute and the party's goals. Vyacheslav Chornovil was elected leader, the rest of the party's leadership was left without major changes. During the Congress some party delegates in opposition to Chornovil created the All-National Movement of Ukraine (VNRU), headed by Larysa Skoryk.

The People's Movement of Ukraine was registered by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice as a political party on 1 February 1993.^[2] Rukh's parliamentary faction split up into 2 different factions in the spring of 1999 (the breakaway faction was led by Hennadiy Udovenko with its highest Rada membership of 19 dwindling to 14; the "other" faction ended with 23; meaning that 10 elected People's Movement of Ukraine deputies did not represent any segment of the party anymore by June 2002).^[23][24] Right before the 1999 presidential elections another major schism took place within the party. Yuriy Kostenko openly protested against the election of Viacheslav Chornovil as the party leader and established another party, People's Movement of Ukraine (Kostenko), where Kostenko became the leader of the party. Despite the split a followed party congress elected Vyacheslav Chornovil as party leader. The congress also adopted the signing of an agreement between People's Movement of Ukraine and the Reforms and Order Party for a political bloc supporting Hennadiy Udovenko as a single presidential candidate for the next elections. At the parliamentary elections on 29 March 1998, the party received 9.4% of the vote^[2] and 46 seats. At the parliamentary elections on 30 March 2002, the party was part of the Viktor Yushchenko Bloc–Our Ukraine. Currently, Rukh was a part of the Our Ukraine Bloc,^[2] where it represented the right wing of the Union's party spectrum. At the parliamentary elections on 26 March 2006, the party was part of the Our Ukraine alliance,^[2] and the party's members secured 13 seats in the parliament. At the 2007 parliamentary elections the party was again part of the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc alliance,^[2] that won 72 out of 450 seats.

In the 2010 local elections the party won 8 representative in the regional parliament of the Lviv Oblast, 3 representative in the regional parliament of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, 1 in Kherson Oblast, 5 in the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea and 3 seats in the city councils of Lviv and Simferopol.^[25]

The party competed as one single party under the "umbrella" party

In 2013, the party split in two parts. The party merged with Ukrainian People's Party in May 2013.^[34] While its former chairman Borys Tarasyuk and others assimilated into "Fatherland" in June 2013.^[35][36] The bulk of the party organisation and ordinary members remained loyal to the party.^[4]

In the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election party leader Vasyl Kuybida received 0.06% of the vote.^[37]

In the

In the 2015 Ukrainian local elections the party was able to gain seats in 270 local councils (0.17% of all local councils).^[4]

On 10 January 2019 Viktor Kryvenko was chosen the People's Movement of Ukraine candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election and their chairman.^[1][33] In the election he received 0.04% of the vote.^[42]

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party had 18 candidates in constituencies, but none of them won a parliamentary seat.^[33]

In the 2020 Ukrainian local elections the party gained 209 deputies (0.47% of all available mandates).^[43]

Political platform

Directly out of the official website:

• Further strengthening and development of the democratic roots of Ukrainian national statehood;
• Implementing the ideas of democracy, pluralism, social solidarity, and open society;
• Rebuilding the national economy on the principles of a freely competitive market system;
• Facilitating the development of private entrepreneurship;
• Systemic agrarian reform;
• Ensuring
  social security for every citizen, social assistance
  for those in need;
• Pension reform;
• The cultural revival of Ukrainian society, of the Ukrainian people's national identity, of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life;
• Integration into the EU and NATO as a vital cornerstone of Ukraine's foreign policy.

Associated organizations

• Shevchenko Society of Ukrainian language (Ukrainian: Товариство української мови імені Тараса Шевченка)
• Lion's Society (Ukrainian: Товариство Лева)
• Committee in support of Lithuania (1990)
• Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People
• Students' Fraternity of Lviv
• Ukrainian Student League

Elections history

Supreme Council of Ukraine

Year	Party-list			Constituency /total	Overall seats won	Seat change	Government
	Popular vote	%	Seats /total
1990	no party list voting			15/450	15 / 450	15	opposition
1994				20/450	20 / 450	5	opposition
1998	2,498,262	9.7%	32/225	14/225	46 / 450	26	minority support
2002	Yushchenko Bloc Our Ukraine		15/225	3/225	18 / 450	8	opposition
2006	Bloc Our Ukraine		10/450	N/A	10 / 450	8	opposition
2007	Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc		6/450	N/A	6 / 450	4	coalition government
2012	Fatherland-United Opposition				N/A	6	opposition
2014	unsuccessfully participated in 4 constituencies.[33]
2019	unsuccessfully participated in 18 constituencies.[33]

Notable politicians

• Yuriy Kostenko, Minister of Natural Environment in 1992–1998
• Volodymyr Lanovyi, Minister of Economy (Vice-Prime Minister) in 1991–1992
• Borys Tarasyuk, Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1998–2000 and 2005–2007
• Hennadiy Udovenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1994–1998

Notes

^a Temporarily merged with

See also

• Qurultai-Rukh

References