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ABSTRACT
Ukraine’s 2020 local elections showed a radical transformation of the party system through the proliferation of local parties. While extant studies have examined the gradual nationalization of the party system, the rapid increase in party system localization, as observed in present-day Ukraine, has rarely been discussed. Combining qualitative evidence on the 2010s’ political processes and quantitative evidence from data analysis of Ukraine’s local election results in 2010, 2015, and 2020, this study demonstrates that party system localization was caused by influential mayors who rapidly accumulated power after the Euromaidan. This increase in mayoral authority has three main causes. First, institutional settings such as popular mayoral elections and the relative autonomy of city governments in the state structure provide mayors with unique powers at odds with other regional actors, such as the governors. Second, the decentralization reform initiated after the Euromaidan empowered mayors and city governments. Finally, Volodymyr Zelens’kyi’s recruitment pattern of governors and his party Servant of the People’s candidate selection process enabled mayors to cultivate their local power bases. This study offers an important implication for the idea of patronalism by indicating the geographical fragmentation of patronal politics.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The position of city mayors differs much from that of county mayors in a variety of ways. This study uses the simple term “mayor” to describe city mayors. If I intend to mention county mayors, they are always described as “county mayors.”
2. Originally, the party, Solidarity, was renamed to Bloc of Petro Poroshenko in August 2014. After Poroshenko’s defeat in the 2019 presidential election, Poroshenko declared that he was renaming the party to European Solidarity (Ukrayins’ka Pravda Citation2019). For simplicity, this study calls the party BPP whatever other official party names the party had.
3. According to an opinion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in January 2021, 20.7% of respondents, except for those who did not provide specific names of parties, answered that they would vote for the Opposition Platform – For Life while only 8.5% replied to SoP (Kyivs’kyi Mizhnarodnyi Instytut Sotsiolohiyi Citation2021).
4. This analysis includes only cities of regional significance, excluding cities from counties. In addition, the mayoral elections in 2015 and 2020 were not held in the cities of Crimea, or in the Donets’k and Luhans’k regions. Thus, the total numbers of the elected mayors slightly differ each year. Furthermore, nine cities of county significance were reclassified to cities of regional significance from 2013 to 2016. This analysis includes those cities since 2010.
5. Note that the data for the 2010 mayoral elections stored on the website of the Central Electoral Commission is incomplete. I supplemented the dataset with information available online. Information about two mayors was not found on the Internet, so those mayors were dropped, totaling 175 mayors.
6. The Central Electoral Commission decided against eight local elections in eight territorial communities in the Luhans’k region and ten in the Donets’k region.
7. Since the 2010 election data lacks the candidates’ data, it is difficult to determine which parties are local.
8. Although the mayor of Zaporizhzhya, elected in 2010, Oleksandr Sin, achieved the victory as a Fatherland candidate, he suffered from relentless attacks from the city legislature dominated by PoR deputies. Finally, Sin transferred to PoR in 2012 (Perepadya Citation2012). Likewise, the mayor of Poltava, Oleksandr Mamai, switched his affiliation to PoR in August 2012 (Ukrayins’ka Pravda Citation2012).
9. Although the incumbent mayor, Oleksandr Symchyshyn, was a nominee of Freedom in Khmel’nyts’kyi, the majority of the city legislature (more than 60%) was occupied by nominees of Party “Komanda Symchyshyna (Symchyshyn’s Team).” The strong connection between the mayor and the party is obvious.
10. Vilkul withdrew his candidacy in the second round despite his victory in the first round. The next mayor, for whom Vilkul declared his support, was from Opposition Platform – For Life. Both of the parties created the majority coalition to cooperate with the mayor (Burdyha Citation2020).