Party of Regions

History

Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine

The founding congress of the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine (the predecessor of the Party of Regions) was held on 26 October 1997 in Kyiv. The first leader of the party was mayor of Donetsk, Volodymyr Rybak. On 6 November 1997, the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine was registered at the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, and on the 27th of that month the 1st Party Congress took place, which adopted the electoral party list and platform for the next elections. On 13 January 1998, a parliamentary faction was created in the parliament of Ukraine. It was known as the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine and was headed by Gennadiy Samofalov.

During the 1998 parliamentary elections, the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine won 0.90% of the votes. A single party representative was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament by winning one constituency in the regular elections. The party was among the top 10 in Chernivtsi and Donetsk Oblasts. Volodymyr Rybak was the winner of constituency number 45 in Donetsk Oblast.

During the 2nd Party Congress that took place in two stages during the spring of 1999, the party decided to support candidate Leonid Kuchma for the next presidential elections. It was recommended that the candidate should include in his election campaign some of the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine's policy proposals, including one on granting the Russian language official status. In the summer of 1999, the party entered the "Our choice – Leonid Kuchma" electoral bloc, consisting of 23 parties and led by Yevhen Kushnaryov, who endorsed incumbent president Leonid Kuchma in the presidential election of 1999.

Creation of the Party of Regions

On 17 November 2000, the 3rd Extraordinary Party Congress adopted the merger of five political parties, For Beautiful Ukraine (led by Leonid Chernovetsky), All-Ukrainian Party of Pensioners (A. Kapusta), Party of Labor (Valentyn Landyk), Party of Solidarity of Ukraine (Petro Poroshenko), and Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine (Volodymyr Rybak), into a new one under the name of Party of Regional Revival "Labor Solidarity of Ukraine". The co-leaders of the new political group became Valentyn Landyk, Petro Poroshenko, and Volodymyr Rybak. Also, shortly before the merger, the Party of Solidarity of Ukraine was completely abandoned by one of its key components, the Peasant Party of Ukraine, which dissolved its union with Solidarity. On February 21, 2001, the Ministry of Justice registered the newly established Party of Regional Revival "Labour Solidarity of Ukraine".

On March 3, 2001, at the 3rd Party Congress, the party changed its name to Party of Regions. At the congress Mykola Azarov, who at that time was chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine, was elected the party leader but soon resigned in December 2001. Azarov was replaced by his deputy and at that time Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko. In an interview with the newspaper Den (Ukrainian: День) on 6 March 2001, Azarov said that he agreed to become the chairman for a brief period "until the party nominated a leader who will claim the office of the President of Ukraine in 2004". In December 2001 the Party of Regions member Ihor Yushchko was appointed Minister of Finance of Ukraine. On 21 March 2001, the Ministry of Justice re-registered the party under the number 939 with the older date of registration.

On 23 May 2001, the party signed an agreement of partnership and cooperation with the party Labour Ukraine (Serhiy Tihipko), and on 7 June 2001, with the Agrarian Party of Ukraine.

"Regions of Ukraine" was the parliamentary wing of the Party of Regions and was created at the end of March 2001 after several deputies defected from their original faction. Critics claimed the deputies were "lured away" from those other factions by pressure, and analysts claimed most of them had nothing to do with the new party. Nine out of seventeen members of the faction had their political and business roots in the Donetsk region. In July 2002 the party had a faction of 24 people (one deputy left the faction later).

Electoral breakthrough

The party shifted its political ideology to the left and became much more populist in nature before the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and, as a result, Yanukovych won over a large part of the Communist party's electorate in eastern Ukraine. The party's stated platform included making Russian a second official language in Ukraine, moving towards a pro-Russian foreign policy, and increasing social spending. It also advocated a regionalist ideology, and many members supported making Ukraine a federation.

The Party of Regions moved into opposition after Viktor Yanukovych, its chosen candidate, lost the 2004 presidential election. Yanukovych first claimed an electoral victory, but strong allegations of electoral fraud triggered a series of events commonly known as the Orange Revolution. In the re-run of the presidential election ordered by the country's Supreme Court, Viktor Yanukovych lost the election to Viktor Yushchenko.

The Party claimed to be a victim of a political persecution campaign organized by the new government, in part because Borys Kolesnykov, the head of the regional party branch and of the Donetsk Oblast Council, was arrested in April 2005 and charged with criminal extortion. The Party of Regions claimed this was an act of political repression, while the authorities believed that Kolesnykov had links to organized crime and his arrest was a purely criminal matter. The Council of Europe called the investigation "in full compliance with European standards". Kolesnykov has since been cleared of charges and released from pre-trial detention.

The party signed a collaboration agreement in 2005 with Russia's "United Russia".

American consultant Paul J. Manafort has advised the party and Yanukovych since 2005.

In the parliamentary elections held on 26 March 2006, the party gained 32.14% of votes and won 186 (out of 450) seats in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament), forming the largest parliamentary group. On 6 July 2006, the Socialist Party of Ukraine abandoned the "Orange Coalition" between Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc following the failure of each bloc to reach agreement on the formation of a governing coalition.

Yanukovych presidency

The Party of Regions endorsed Viktor Yanukovych as their candidate for the 2010 presidential election. The party intended to create a new coalition in the Verkhovna Rada and form a new government if Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential elections. Yanukovych was elected President of Ukraine on 7 February 2010. On 19 February the Ukrainian parliament terminated the powers of Ukrainian Member of Parliament (MP) Yanukovych, in his place #179 on the electoral list of the Party of Regions at the 2007 early parliamentary elections. Tamara Yehorenko was registered as an MP by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine on 26 February. On 3 March, Ukrainian President Yanukovych suspended his membership in the Party — Yanukovych was barred by the Constitution from heading a political party — and handed over leadership in the party and in the parliamentary faction to Mykola Azarov. Nine days later Azarov handed it to Oleksandr Yefremov. On 11 March 2010, together with Bloc Lytvyn and Communist Party of Ukraine, the party joined the first Azarov Government. The Party of Regions elected Azarov as its new Chairman at its 12th congress on 23 April 2010.

Seven extra deputies (four of whom were Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) members) joined the Party of Regions faction in October 2010. In March 2011 five more former BYuT deputies joined the faction. By late November 2012 the Party of Regions faction consisted of 195 lawmakers (20 more than the 175 elected in September 2007).

During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, the party won majorities on most regional and city councils as well as most of the mayoralties (except in Western Ukraine), and in the 2010 Crimean parliamentary election (where it won over 70% of the seats). It was the only party that won representatives in all Ukrainian oblasts where elections were held, and it won the most votes in all but four of those oblasts (the four oblasts where it did not were situated in Western Ukraine). In Crimea, particularly in 2010–2014, the Party of Regions was nicknamed "Makedonians" because the Crimean Prime Ministers Vasyl Dzharty and Anatolii Mohyliov were associated with the "Makiivka-Donetsk clan."

In September 2010, the party was planning to sign a memorandum on cooperation with China's Communist Party.

On 14 October 2010, the Party of Regions formed a cooperative arrangement with the Socialists and Democrats European parliamentary group.

Post-Yanukovych presidency

From November 2013, protests against Yanukovych's rule evolved into the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989, known as Euromaidan which led to the Revolution of Dignity. Two main goals of Euromaidan were the removal of President Yanukovych and the calling of snap elections. In late January 2014, the party's symbol and activities were banned in the Chernivtsi, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, although there was no legal basis for these bans, since in Ukraine only a court can ban the activities of a political force. The Party of Regions faction in Zhytomyr announced its dissolution on 19 February 2014.

On 22 February 2014, the Ukrainian parliament voted for the resolution on self-removal of Viktor Yanukovych, as President of Ukraine. Out of the 38 PoR deputies present, 36 voted in favor of ousting Yanukovych, while two did not take part in the vote. Simultaneously, both Yanukovych and former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov fled to Russia. In a written statement the next day, the party denounced Yanukovych, stating they "strongly condemn the criminal orders that led to human victims, an empty state treasury, huge debts, shame before the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the entire world." On 24 February 2014, faction leader Oleksandr Yefremov declared that the party was moving into the opposition. 77 of its MPs had left the faction in the preceding days. On 25 February 2014, Anatoliy Kinakh and 32 other mostly former PoR deputies created the parliamentary faction Economic Development.

On 28 March 2014, Yanukovych asked the Party of Regions to exclude him. The next day, at a party congress, the party nominated Mykhailo Dobkin as its presidential candidate for the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. The congress expelled many former leaders from the party including Yanukovych, Azarov, former First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov, ex-chairman of the Ministry of Revenue and Duties Olexander Klimenko, former Energy Minister Eduard Stavitskyi, ex-governor of the Donetsk region Andrew Shishatskiy, and Valery Konovalyuk. On 7 April 2014, the political council of the party also expelled Sergiy Tigipko, Oleh Tsariov, and Yuriy Boiko from the party.

Mykhailo Dobkin was the Party of Regions' candidate in the snap presidential election of 25 May 2014, and received only 3 percent of the vote.

On 3 June 2014, another twenty Party of Regions deputies left the party's parliamentary faction. Including this change, the faction's strength was reduced from 210 deputies (at its highest point on 12 December 2012) to 80 deputies by 6 June 2014. As a result, it became the second biggest faction in parliament after the 85 member-strong Batkivshchyna faction. On 2 July 2014, the 32 member-strong new parliamentary faction For Peace and Stability, composed mostly of former Party of Regions MPs, was formed. In the following months many former members of the Party of Regions became objects of the so-called "trash bucket challenge", where Ukrainian officials dumped images of the former PoR members into garbage bins and other trash containers.

Issue stances

The Party of Regions has been described as center-left or left-leaning. The party is associated with other left-wing parties such as Volodymyr Lytvyn's People's Party and the Communist Party of Ukraine. All three parties have combined a pro-Russian orientation with populist, redistributive policies.

In 2011, the party asserted it had a pragmatic approach to Ukrainian EU membership and the country's foreign economic interests; it said it supported "[walking] the path of European integration and the implementation of respective standards in the social and economic spheres". Yet, given the European financial crisis at the time, the party saw the issue of Ukraine's accession to the EU as "purely theoretical."

The party accepts Ukrainian as the only state language in Ukraine, but also claims to promote "both the development of the state Ukrainian language and languages of other nationalities residing on the territory of Ukraine".

The Party of Regions supports the cancellation of a number of benefits for deputies of the Ukrainian parliament. Leading party members have stated the party "would mercilessly expel corrupt officials from its ranks".

In November 2013 Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov demanded a criminal investigation into the activities of the United States Department of State-led TechCamp in Ukraine because he believed it was engaged in "preparations for inciting a civil war" because during training "instructors share their experience of Internet technologies, which are aimed at shaping public opinion and enhancing the protest potential and which were used to organize street protests in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria".

The Party of Regions lost much of its policy influence amid the 2014 revolution in Ukraine. 72 deputies left the party; the remaining deputies either supported key opposition demands like impeaching Yanukovich, firing Zakharchenko and the General Prosecutor or did not vote.

On 23 February 2014, the party faction of Verkhovna Rada published a statement blaming everything wrong on "Yanukovych and his inner circle", accusing him in particular of giving out "criminal orders", and lamenting that the whole party had been "in effect hostage of one corrupt family".

Political program

On the question of European integration, different views exist within the party. On the one hand, President Viktor Yanukovych, who was a member of the party, has repeatedly underlined his pro-European stances. On the other hand, experts have described the Party of Regions as eurosceptic. The Party's official stance is for increased European integration, but within a framework that is favorable to Ukraine.

The party supports policies including affordable housing funded through state mortgages with a 3% annual percentage rate, social contracts with employers, financial aid for newborns, perinatal centers in each region, and the upgrading of maternity homes.

The party supports plans for at least 75 percent placement in higher-educational institutions, a minimum-wage student stipend, a minimum 20-percent annual raise in educator salaries, and universal Internet access. In labor issues, the party supports fully subsidizing employers of the disabled, orphans, single mothers, and workers over age 50; training the unemployed for occupations with labor shortages; providing internships to students; giving young professionals their first job; and a median salary of ₴8,000 by 2017.

The party supports a median salary of ₴8,000 for physicians and ₴5,500 for other medical personnel, reducing basic-medicine prices by 30 percent, providing access to medicines to patients with cancer, heart disease, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, mobile medical facilities in all rural areas, treatment, and rehabilitation for people with limited physical abilities and new pools, stadiums, ice arenas, and sports fields in all regions.

The party supports comfortable, affordable housing; security for senior citizens; the repayment of all deposits in the Sberbank of the USSR up to ₴5,000 by 2017; a minimum pension of 20 percent over the poverty threshold, and significant pension increases for military and law-enforcement personnel. In the environmental sector, the party supports the completion of the Shelter Project for the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant by 2015, as well as the installation of 20,000 centralized water-purification systems and recycling plants in each region.

Economically, the Party of Regions' core policy proposals are a gradual reduction of corporate income tax, the introduction of tax holidays for IT and innovation projects, and an increase in affordable bank loans for domestic manufacturers. In the energy sector, the Party of Regions advocates: increasing the extraction of domestic coal, oil, and shale gas; developing the shelf gas fields; enhancing the use of solar, wind, and hydropower; and modernizing power plants so they can efficiently use domestic coal and other fuel sources. The Party of Regions also has a rural focus, with proposed policies including the creation of 1,500 agricultural cooperatives, the construction of new crop storage sites, government-set prices for land and rent. In addition to a rural emphasis, the Party of Regions' infrastructure policy also includes: the construction of more modern automobile roads; a new speed rail link between the capital and regions; more affordable aviation transportation; the construction and redevelopment of airports, seaports and rail stations; and the development of more metro stations and commuter rail links.

Selected members

Mykola Azarov – Chairman

Oleksandr Yefremov – Deputy Chairman of the Party of Regions on Relations with the Parliament of Ukraine

Petro Pysarchuk

Vremya Regionov

The Party of Regions published a nationwide weekly newspaper (Russian: "Время Регионов", romanized: Vremya Regionov, lit. 'Time of the Regions'). The newspaper was published in Kyiv from 24 August 2008. It was released (on Thursdays) in Ukrainian and Russian online.

International cooperation

The party has previously had international cooperation agreements with the following parties:

Russia: United Russia

EU: Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats

Kazakhstan: Nur Otan

Azerbaijan: New Azerbaijan Party

Armenia: Republican Party of Armenia and Prosperous Armenia

Kyrgyzstan: Ar-Namys

Cyprus: Progressive Party of Working People

Poland: Democratic Left Alliance

China: Chinese Communist Party

Vietnam: Communist Party of Vietnam