United Civic Party

The United Civic Party (UCP;

The party was established in 1995 as a result of a merger of two like-minded parties, the United Democratic Party (formed in 1990) and the Civil Party (formed in 1994).^[5] The party's chairman is Mikałaj Kazłoŭ;^[6] deputy chairmen are Alaksandar Dabravolski and Jarasłaŭ Ramančuk.

At the legislative elections, 13–17 October 2004, the party was part of the People's Coalition 5 Plus, which did not secure any seats. According to the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, these elections fell significantly short of OSCE commitments. Universal principles and constitutionally guaranteed rights of expression, association and assembly were seriously challenged, calling into question the Belarusian authorities’ willingness to respect the concept of political competition on a basis of equal treatment. According to this mission principles of an inclusive democratic process, whereby citizens have the right to seek political office without discrimination, candidates to present their views without obstruction, and voters to learn about them and discuss them freely, were largely ignored.^[7]

In the 2008 elections, the party ran on its own, finishing in third place with 2.33 percent of the official vote and no seats gained. As with most of the opposition parties, the UCP boycotted the 2012 election, urging its supporters to abstain from voting as to not give credence to the process.

For the

On 15 August 2023, the United Civic Party was banned by the Supreme Court of Belarus.[9]

Structure

UCP has an organisation for women and a youth organisation in its structure.

In 1995-2000, the youth organisation of the UCP was "Civil Forum", which left UCP during parliamentary elections of 2000, when the UCP boycotted it against the wishes of Civil Forum. Uładzimier Navasiad, chairman of Civil Forum, ran and won a seat in Parliament.

In 2000, the youth organisation was "UCP Youth", created to replace Civil Forum, but was rather an artificial structure in the party.

From later that year until 2009, YCSU Young Democrats was officially a youth wing of UCP, but in February 2009 at the congress of YCSU Young Democrats, a decision to stop cooperating with the party was taken. Some members did not support the decision to restrain cooperation with United Civic Party and left, staying as UCP Youth.

Electoral performance

Presidential elections

Election	Candidate	First round		Second round		Result
		Votes	%	Votes	%
1994	Endorsed Stanislav Shushkevich	585,143	9.91%			Lost N
1999	Mikhail Chigir	No winner announced
2001	Endorsed Uładzimir Hančaryk	965,261	15.65%			Lost N
2006	Endorsed Alaksandar Milinkievič	405,486	6.12%			Lost N
2010	Jaroslav Romanchuk	127,281	1.98%			Lost N
2015	Anatoly Lebedko	Not admitted to the elections
2020	Mikalaj Kazloŭ	Not admitted to the elections, Endorsed Tsikhanouskaya
	Uladzimir Niapomniaščych	Not admitted to the elections

Legislative elections

Election	Party leader	Performance					Rank	Government
		Votes	%	± pp	Seats	+/–
1995	Stanislaŭ Bahdankievič	No data	3.1%	New	6 / 260	New	4th	Opposition
2000	Anatoly Lebedko	Boycotted the elections						Extra-parliamentary
2004		160,011	2.62% (5 Plus)	0.48	0 / 110	0	7th	Extra-parliamentary
2008		125,276	2.33%	0.29	0 / 110	0	4th	Extra-parliamentary
2012		Boycotted the elections						Extra-parliamentary
2016		111,227	2.16%	0.17	1 / 110	1	5th	Opposition
2019	Mikalaj Kazloŭ	72,192	1.37%	0.79	0 / 110	1	8th	Extra-parliamentary

References