Leader Oleh Lyashko Political position Left wing | Headquarters Mykolaiv European affiliation None | |
Founded 28 September 2010 (2010-09-28) Ideology Ukrainian nationalism
Radicalism
Left-wing populism
Agrarianism | ||
The Radical Party (Ukrainian: Радикальна Партія) is a political party in Ukraine. It was registered in September 2010. Its official name is the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko (Ukrainian: Радикальна Партія Олега Ляшка).
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The party won 22 seats at the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election. At the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election it won 1 seat.
Ukrainian Radical Democratic Party
The party was established at the founding congress in Mykolaiv on 18 August 2010 and was then named the Ukrainian Radical-Democratic Party (Ukrainian: Українська демократично-радикальна партія). Under this name it was registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on 28 September 2010. At the time, the party was led by Vladislav Telipko.
Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko
On 8 August 2011, during its third party congress, Oleh Lyashko was elected the new party leader. The same day the party changed its name to the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko.
At the 2012 parliamentary election the party won 1.08% of the national votes and 1 constituency (it had competed in 28 constituencies) for its leader Lyashko who did not join a faction in the Verkhovna Rada. The party was most successful in Chernihiv Oblast, where it received 10.69 percent of the vote, finishing fifth. The constituency that Lyashko won was also located in Chernihiv Oblast.
According to political scientist Tadeusz A. Olszański mid-September 2014 the party was "a typical one-man party, centred around Oleh Lyashko; its real organisational potential remains a mystery".
At the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party's list was led by Lyashko. In third place was Serhiy Melnychuk, commander of the Aidar Battalion. In fourth place was the singer Zlata Ognevich. And in fifth place was Yuri Shukhevych, son of the military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Roman Shukhevych. At the election the party won 22 seats. It received support from rural and regional voters who had previously supported Fatherland.
On 21 November 2014 the party became a member of the coalition supporting the current second Yatsenyuk Government and sent one minister into this government.
On 3 June 2015 parliament stripped the party's MP Melnychuk of his parliamentary prosecutorial immunity rights; he was accused of forming a criminal gang, abductings and threatening people.
Radical Party left the second Yatsenyuk Government coalition on 1 September 2015 in protest over a vote in parliament involving a change to the Ukrainian Constitution that would lead to decentralization and greater powers for areas held by pro-Russian separatists. According to party leader Lyashko the party “can’t stay in the coalition after anti-Ukrainian changes to the constitution, initiated by the president, were approved against the will of three parties of the coalition”. (He was referring to his own party, Self Reliance and Fatherland.)
Ideology and stances
The party is centered on Lyashko, who is known for his populism and highly combative behavior. The Radical Party advocates a number of traditional left-wing positions (lower salary taxes, a ban on agricultural land sale and eliminating the illegal land market, a tenfold increase in budget spending on health, setting up primary health centres in every village ), and mixes them with strong nationalist sentiments. Anton Shekhovtsov of University College London considers Lyashko's party to be similar to left-wing populist and nationalist.
The party has promised to purify the country of oligarchs "with a pitchfork". It has proposed higher taxes on products manufactured by oligarchs and a crisis tax on the latter.
The party wants to re-arm Ukraine with nuclear weapons. Concerning the War in Donbass the party advocates an end to the conflict by use of force.