Adapting to closed-list proportional representation: lessons from Ukraine

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the implications of Ukraine’s move from a mixed electoral system to one of proportional representation in the 2006 parliamentary elections. In particular, it seeks to understand how the elimination of district contests affected the two major parties’ strategies in selecting candidates. Two strategies are outlined: prioritizing inclusion and prioritizing cohesion. Under the former, parties co-opt unaffiliated district deputies to improve their electoral fortunes despite potential costs to party discipline. The latter involves parties selecting affiliated deputies on the expectation of greater loyalty if elected. The analysis reveals that while the ruling party, Our Ukraine, employed a cautious version of inclusion, its opponent, the Party of Regions, emphasized cohesion. The findings show that “one size does not fit all” when it comes to how parties react to the introduction of list-only systems. Furthermore, given the greater subsequent success of The Party of Regions in gaining office, the results question the degree to which ruling parties benefit electorally from greater inclusion when responding to the advent of more proportional electoral rules.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the Fulbright Program, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine, and the University of Florida for supporting fieldwork that contributed to this manuscript as well as Alexandra Chopenko and Sarah Rickner for their assistance with data entry. Matthew Caverly, Oleksander Demyanchuk, Lawrence C. Dodd, Amanda Edgell, Nicholas Knowlton, Michael Martinez, Dragana Svraka, Serhii Tereshko, and Michelle Taylor-Robinson all raised useful comments and suggestions on the larger project associated with this work. The opinions expressed in the manuscript do not reflect the positions of these institutions or individuals; the author is solely responsible for all interpretations or errors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Bryon Moraski is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His research examines the operation, evolution, and manipulation of political institutions and elections, primarily in the former Soviet bloc.

Notes

1 Birch (2000, 107) lists the number of independents elected in 1998 as 116.

2 In contrast to 1998, dual candidacies (i.e. running as a list and district candidate) were no longer an option, having been ruled unconstitutional (Herron 2014, 354).

3 While future work may wish to compare the prospects of district deputies landing on party lists relative to list deputies, doing so undermines the ability to examine two theoretically interesting characteristics of the district deputies: their ability to win votes as individuals and the locations of their districts.

4 This is in large part thanks to its ties to elites in Donetsk oblast and the financial support of the oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov (D’Anieri 2007, 170).

5 At its seventh congress on March 5, 2005, Party of Regions members officially adopted the decision to become an opposition party (Ukraine Elections 2016, “Partiya regionov”).

6 Given its status as an electoral alliance of six parties, list construction for Our Ukraine depended on interparty negotiations with the party leadership making the initial decisions. For example, the core of the alliance, the People’s Union Our Ukraine, adopted a list at the party’s congress (Ukrainskaya Pravda 2005a, “Krome Yushchenko … ”), but these individuals were not to exceed 65% of the unified list (Ukrainskaya Pravda 2005b, “V bloke Yushchenko … ”).

7 Members of the Party of Regions confirmed the list of candidates at the December 3, 2005 party congress (Ukraine Elections 2016, “Partiya Regionov”), but party leaders composed the list. At the end of November 2005, for example, Ukrainian media announced that the party’s leader, Viktor Yanukovich, had asked Ukrainian businessman, Rinat Akhmetov, to compete as a candidate on the 2006 list and that Akhmetov had accepted. At the press conference, Yanukovich also announced that the formation of the list was 99% complete (see, e.g. Fakty i Kommentarii 2005). At a subsequent press conference, Yanukovich provided no clear answers as to why a former general prosecutor, Svyatoslav Piskun, made the list, noting only that the decision was made collectively by the party leadership (Ukrainskaya Pravda 2005c, “Yanukovich ne boitsya Akhmetova … ”).

8 Volodimir Satsyuk from district 64 fled to Russia and became a Russian citizen after being suspected of involvement in the poisoning Yushchenko (PolitRada 2014, “Dossier”). Meanwhile, Oleh Oleksenko from district 82 died in office prior to the end of the parliamentary session (Piskovii 2002) as did Ivan Chetverikov from district 151 (Official web-portal of the Verkhovna Rada 2004, “Transcript of the Plenary Session, 20 April 2004”).

9 The 49 deputies competing on other lists of parties unrepresented in the Rada in 2006 were spread across 14 parties.

10 Tables summarizing the distribution of district deputies across the six party lists on the bases of their nominations and party memberships are available from the author.

11 The discrepancy between this number and the number presented in Table 1 reflects the changing population of deputies – that is, the difference between the 222 initially elected in March 2002 and the 222 still eligible to compete (i.e. in the country and alive) in 2006.

12 This coding complements domestic observations of legislative behavior. The author thanks Anatoliy Romanyuk and Yuriy Shveda at Ivan Franko National University of L'viv who identified the start of election campaigns as a defining moment when Ukrainian deputies most likely change faction memberships.

13 The average number of factional memberships was 3.1 and ranged from 1 to 8. Over 46% of the deputies were members of only one or two factions.

14 While the analysis examines the entire population rather than a sample, I report significance levels as indicators of relationship strength.

15 The author thanks one of the anonymous reviewers for helping to articulate these strategies.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board under the provisions of the Mutual and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (as amended), the Fulbright Program, and administered by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, United States Department of State with the cooperation of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.