2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election

The next Ukrainian parliamentary election will be held in March of 2006.

The election to Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) will be held by a single national election district with votes being given to the national political parties or election blocs rather than to individual candidates.

According to the election law, the political parties or election blocs need to collect over 3% of the national vote in order to gain seats in the parliament.

According to the polls, current front-runners are Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Party of Regions, as well as President Yushchenko's People's Union Our Ukraine. While the polling data varies greatly, most polls give between each of these election blocs about 12 to 20% vote.

Two other political forces that are virtually assured to pass a 3% barrier are the Socialist Party of Ukraine headed by Oleksander Moroz and the bloc of the current Speaker of Verkhovna Rada, Volodymyr Lytvyn (based on his former Agrarian Party of Ukraine renamed to the People's Party of Ukraine).

The Communist Party of Ukraine, which has progressively gained less and less votes with each election (25% in 1998, 20% in 2002), is expected to gain substantially less than in the last election. Another party, SDPU(o), sponsored by Viktor Medvedchuk, Hryhoriy Surkis and other cronies of the former President Kuchma's, is unlikely to overcome the 3% barrier.

See also

• Orange Revolution
• Verkhovna Rada, the Parliament of Ukraine

External links

• Review of the most recent polls as of November 3, 2005 (in Russian).