People's Movement of Ukraine

Public movement

Initially organized as the People's Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction (i.e. for Perestroika), Rukh was founded in 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 Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost policies. 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 February 16, 1989. The organization has its roots in Ukrainian dissidents — the most notable of them being Vyacheslav 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 September 8–10, 1989 in Kiev. Elected as the first leader of the movement was the Ukrainian poet and screenwriter Ivan Drach.

The official Soviet press and government portrayed members as anti-Semites at first.

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

At first the movement aimed at supporting Gorbachev's reforms, 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. In the western oblasts "Rukh" became colloquially known as an abbreviation for the call Save Ukraine, fellows! (Рятуйте Україну, Хлопці!).

Political party

The movement initially registered by the Ministry of Justice on February 9, 1990 as the political party. After the creation of the Ukrainian Republican Party (URP) in January 1990 and later the Democratic Party of Ukraine (DemPU), the People's Movement of Ukraine unofficially existed as a coalition of those two along with numerous other smaller factions. These parties created a group within the Verkhovna Rada called the "Democratic Bloc" which stood in opposition to "Group 239", which was led by Oleksandr Moroz ("For the sovereign Soviet Ukraine") (see Ukrainian parliamentary election, 1990). In October 1990 Rukh's second Party Congress took place. During the session it was decided to exclude the word "Reconstruction" (Perestroika), not to be associated with the Communist movement. Ivan Drach was re-elected as leader, while his deputies became Mykhailo Horyn and Oleksandr Lavrynovych. In order to draw the URP and DemPU closer to Rukh, the "Institute of Associative Membership in the Movement" was established. The brittle coalition of the mentioned parties held until the presidential elections in September 1991 when URP and DemPU provided their own candidates in opposition to Vyacheslav Chornovil.

From February 28 - March 1, 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 February 1, 1993. Rukh's parliamentary faction did 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). Right before the 1999 presidential elections another major schism took place within the party. Yuriy Kostenko openly protested against the election of Vyacheslav 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 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, 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, 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, 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 Supreme Council of Crimea and 3 seats in the city councils of Lviv and Simferopol.

The party competed as one single party under the "umbrella" party "Fatherland", together with several other parties, during the 2012 parliamentary elections During the election this list won 62 seats (25.55% of the votes) under the proportional party-list system and another 39 by winning 39 simple-majority constituencies; a total of 101 seats in Parliament.

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

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

In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party participated in 3 constituencies; but its candidates lost in all of them and thus the party won no parliamentary seats. However, after being expelled from (the political party) Self Reliance the lawmakers Pavlo Kyshkar and Viktor Kryvenko joined the party in April 2016 (in parliament they both joined the faction of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc).

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

Political platform

Directly out of the official website:

Notable politicians