Political party “Batkivshchyna”
Main information
“Batkivshchyna is a political party that positions itself as an opposition to the current government. “Batkivshchyna” was represented in all convocations of the Verkhovna Rada during its existence (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th convocations). The party has an extensive network of branches in all regions of Ukraine except for the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Registration: July 9, 1999
Website: ba.org.ua
Political ideology: liberal conservatism
Party program: Link
Founder of the party: Yulia Tymoshenko
History of the party
- July 9, 1999: The founding congress of the Batkivshchyna party takes place in Kyiv. The party is formed on the basis of the public organization “Union of Peaceful Forces Batkivshchyna”, Viktor Drachenko (former secretary of the Dnipropetrovs’k regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine) becomes its first chairman.
- September 16, 1999: The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine officially registers the Batkivshchyna party,
- December 18, 1999: The second congress takes place. Yulia Tymoshenko is elected chairwoman of the party, Oleksandr Turchynov and Yaroslav Fedorchuk are elected deputy chairmen.
- February 20, 2001: The leaders of 7 parties adopted a declaration on the creation of the electoral bloc “Forum for National Salvation”. This bloc included: Batkivshchyna, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party, the Ukrainian Platform “Sobor”, the Ukrainian Republican Party, the Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party, the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party, and the Party of Pensioners of Ukraine.
- November 7, 2001: By the decision of the bloc leaders, the Forum for National Salvation (FNS) is renamed the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB).
- December 2, 2001: The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB) is officially approved by the party leaders: Anatoliy Matviyenko (UNP Sobor), Vasyl Onopenko (USDP), Levko Lukyanenko (URP), and Yulia Tymoshenko (Batkivshchyna).
- December 15, 2001: Stepan Khmara’s Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party (UCRP) joins Yulia Tymoshenko’s Bloc.
- March 31, 2002: In its first parliamentary elections, Yulia Tymoshenko’s electoral bloc ranks 4th out of 33 participants, gaining 7.26% or 1,882,087 votes and thus gaining 22 seats in the Verkhovna Rada.
- July 2, 2004: On behalf of the bloc, Yulia Tymoshenko signs an agreement with Viktor Yushchenko to form the “Power of the People” coalition. The agreement provides for the support of Viktor Yushchenko in the presidential election and, if he wins, for Yulia Tymoshenko to become Prime Minister of Ukraine.
- December 26, 2004: The so-called “third round” of the presidential election takes place. The candidate supported by Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc, Viktor Yushchenko, wins the election and becomes president of Ukraine.
- February 4, 2005: Yulia Tymoshenko is confirmed as Prime Minister of Ukraine by 375 votes in the Verkhovna Rada. Oleksandr Turchynov becomes head of the Security Service of Ukraine.
- March 19, 2005: Mikhail Brodsky’s Yabloko party decides at its congress to dissolve itself and join the Batkivshchyna party. However, a little later, Yabloko reverses this decision and continues to exist separately.
- September 8, 2005: Due to a conflict in the executive branch, Viktor Yushchenko dismisses Yulia Tymoshenko’s government and the Batkivshchyna party goes into opposition.
- November 26, 2005: The congress of the United Ukraine party, led by Bohdan Hubskyi, decides to join Batkivshchyna. However, as in the case of the Yabloko party, this decision is later canceled.
- March 26, 2006: Parliamentary elections are held. Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc comes in second out of 45 participants with 22.29% (5,652,876 votes). The bloc wins 129 seats in the parliament.
- September 30, 2007: In the early elections, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc remains in second place after the Party of Regions, but this time with 30.71% of support (7,162,193 votes), which means 156 parliamentary seats.
- December 18, 2007: The parliamentary coalition of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the NUNS, and the Lytvyn Bloc appoints Yulia Tymoshenko as head of the government of Ukraine at the second attempt. In a roll-call vote, 226 out of 226 deputies voted in favor.
- October 24, 2009: The ninth congress of the Batkivshchyna party takes place on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, where Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is nominated as the party’s presidential candidate.
- January 17, 2010: In the first round of the presidential election, Yulia Tymoshenko, a candidate of the Batkivshchyna party, comes in second (25.05%) and advances to the second round of the election.
- February 7, 2010: Presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko loses in the second round of the election to Party of Regions candidate Viktor Yanukovych. Her result is 45.47% (11,593,357 votes).
- March 3, 2010: The Verkhovna Rada passes a majority vote of no confidence in Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, which will lead to its resignation. 243 MPs voted for the decision, including seven from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
- March 11, 2010: The new majority in parliament decides to resign Yulia Tymoshenko’s post of Prime Minister of Ukraine to Mykola Azarov.
- May 1, 2010: Political persecution of party leader Yulia Tymoshenko begins in May 2010. Later, a number of criminal cases are opened against her.
- October 17, 2010: The first stage of the tenth congress of the Batkivshchyna party takes place. The delegates of the congress adopt a resolution calling on Ukrainians not to support the ruling party in the local elections.
- October 31, 2010: Local elections are held, in which the Batkivshchyna party gains 13.1% of the vote across Ukraine and comes in second place behind the Party of Regions.
- May 20, 2011: In Kyiv, at the second stage of the tenth party congress, Yulia Tymoshenko is re-elected as party chairwoman, and delegates elect governing bodies and ask Yuriy Lutsenko to end his hunger strike in jail.
- October 11, 2011: Kyiv’s Pecherskyi District Court finds Yulia Tymoshenko guilty of exceeding her powers as Prime Minister of Ukraine. The court sentenced Tymoshenko to 7 years in prison, deprived her of the right to hold certain positions in the government for 3 years after serving the main sentence, and ordered her to pay $189 million in damages to Naftogaz.
- December 28, 2011: At a press conference, the party’s deputy chairman, Oleksandr Turchynov, announces the beginning of the process of real unification with the People’s Self-Defense party on the basis of the Batkivshchyna party.
- January 19, 2012: The party’s press service publishes a statement on merging with the Reforms and Order party into one political force on the basis of Batkivshchyna.
- March 2, 2012: The party signs an agreement with the People’s Movement of Ukraine on cooperation in the next parliamentary elections and the compilation of a joint list for majority and party constituencies on the basis of Batkivshchyna.
March 30, 2012: The eleventh congress of the Batkivshchyna party takes place, at which Yulia Tymoshenko reads out an appeal calling for the unification of all opposition forces into one political party in order to win the parliamentary elections and change the government in Ukraine - April 7, 2012: At a press conference, the leader of the Front for Change party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, announces the formation of a unified list of candidates for parliamentary elections together with Batkivshchyna in 2012.
- April 24, 2012: The head of the Social Christian Party, Zoryan Shkiryak, announces that he will join the United Opposition Batkivshchyna.
- June 20, 2012: Anatoliy Hrytsenko’ s Civic Position party joins the united opposition.
- July 30, 2012: The congress of the united opposition Batkivshchyna presents its electoral list for the parliamentary elections: Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk, Hrytsenko, Turchynov, Lutsenko, Kyrylenko, Nemyria, Sobolev, Tarasyuk, Tomenko
- October 28, 2012: Ukraine holds regular parliamentary elections. «The United Opposition comes in second with 25.54% (5,209,090 votes). The party’s lists elect 62 deputies to the Verkhovna Rada and another 39 in majority districts. Arseniy Yatsenyuk becomes the head of the faction in parliament.
- June 14, 2013: The Front for Change party congress unanimously decides to merge with the Batkivshchyna party by liquidating it.
- June 15, 2013: A congress takes place in Kyiv, where Yulia Tymoshenko is re-elected as the head of the Batkivshchyna party, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk is elected as the head of the political council.
- February 22, 2014: The Verkhovna Rada passes a resolution to release Yulia Tymoshenko based on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. On the same day, after arriving in Kyiv, Yulia Tymoshenko visited Hrushevskoho Street, where she paid tribute to those killed in the confrontation with police special forces. Afterward, she spoke at the Independence Square.
- March 29, 2014: At a congress in Kyiv’s St. Sophia Square, Tymoshenko is nominated as a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine in the upcoming presidential election in May.
- May 25, 2014: In the early presidential election, party candidate Yulia Tymoshenko comes in second place with 12.82% (2,310,130 votes). However, Petro Poroshenko wins the election in the first round, breaking the 50% threshold.
- August 26, 2014: It becomes known that 20 people have resigned from the Batkivshchyna political council, including: Oleksandr Turchynov, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Arsen Avakov, Serhiy Pashynsky, and Andriy Parubiy. The reason, according to Avakov, was that they failed to agree with the party on a merger with several other political forces and put the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the top of the list. A new political party, the People’s Front, is planned to be created.
- August 30, 2014: «Batkivshchyna initiates a referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO on the day of the October 26 parliamentary elections. However, the CEC later refuses to register the initiative group.
- September 14, 2014: The Congress approves the party list for the early parliamentary elections. The top five are: Nadiya Savchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Ihor Lutsenko, Serhiy Sobolev, and Aliona Shkrum.
- October 26, 2014: In the early parliamentary elections, Batkivshchyna takes 6th place with 5.68% (894,837 votes), which gives it 17 seats on the list, and 2 more deputies from the party are elected in majority districts.
- November 27, 2014: After several weeks of negotiations in the Verkhovna Rada, the Batkivshchyna faction, along with the Popular Front, the BPP, Samopomich, and the Radical Party, signs an agreement on the European Ukraine coalition.
- November 9, 2015: Batkivshchyna agrees with Svoboda on mutual support in the second round of local elections and coordination of actions in the newly elected local councils.
- November 15, 2015: Local elections in Ukraine end with the second round. According to the aggregate data, Batkivshchyna ranks second with a result of 12.23%, which allows it to elect 8016 deputies to local councils and 369 mayors of cities, villages and towns.
- February 17, 2016: The party leaves the ruling coalition after failing to dismiss Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government .
- April 5, 2016: Yulia Tymoshenko announces in Lviv that her political force will move to the parliamentary opposition.
- September 6, 2016: Following the results of the mid-term elections in the majority constituencies, MPs Ruslan Bohdan and Yuriy Odarchenko join the faction
- October 29, 2016: The 14th Congress of Batkivshchyna takes place. The party nominates more than 4,000 candidates for deputies and 184 candidates for heads of united communities for the elections to be held on December 11 and 18
- December 15, 2016: Nadiya Savchenko is expelled from the Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction
- October 29, 2017: Ukraine holds a large wave of elections in ATCs, with the Batkivshchyna party gaining 20.33% and electing 901 deputies to the councils. In 2016-2017, Batkivshchyna ranked first among political parties in terms of the number of deputies elected to local councils in the ATC elections.
- January 22, 2019: A regular congress of the Batkivshchyna party takes place in Kyiv at the Palace of Sports. Delegates nominate their leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, as a candidate for the March 31 presidential election.
- March 31, 2019: The first round of the Ukrainian presidential election takes place. Yulia Tymoshenko comes in third with 13.4% (2,532,452 votes), passing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Petro Poroshenko into the second round.
- March 31, 2019: At the party’s congress, the top five on the Batkivshchyna list for the early parliamentary elections are announced: Yulia Tymoshenko, Serhiy Taruta, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Serhiy Sobolev, and Olena Kondratiuk.
- July 21, 2019: In the early parliamentary elections of 2019, Batkivshchyna takes third place with a result of 8.18% (1,196,303 votes), which allows it to bring 24 MPs to the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada.
- August 29, 2019: Olena Kondratiuk, a member of the Batkivshchyna faction, is appointed Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. This was voted for by 318 MPs.
- November 13, 2019: The Batkivshchyna faction moves into opposition to the ruling Servant of the People party after a law is passed lifting the moratorium on land sales in Ukraine as of October 1, 2020.
August 8, 2020: At a press conference in Kyiv, the leader of the party announces that Batkivshchyna is running in the local elections with the slogan “THE ONLY RELIABLE TEAM” and nominates Oleksiy Kucherenko for mayor of Kyiv.
The composition of the party:
Chairman of the political council:
- Yulia Tymoshenko
Chairman of the party - Kyrylenko Ivan Hryhorovych
First Deputy Chairman of the party
- Abdullin Oleksandr Rafkatovych
Deputy Chairman of the party
- Vlasenko Serhiy Volodymyrovych
Deputy Chairman of the party
- Kozhemiakin Andrii Anatoliiovych
Deputy Chairman of the party
Finance.
In 2019, the election fund of the presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko amounted to about UAH 230 million. At the same time, UAH 116 million was transferred to the central account of Batkivshchyna in the last month of the presidential campaign.
For the parliamentary campaign in 2019, Batkivshchyna officially raised 87.2 million. It is worth noting that after the parliamentary elections, the amount of funding for the political party decreased tenfold.
“Batkivshchyna received funds from the state budget as a party represented in parliament. At the same time, it has been repeatedly revealed that Batkivshchyna received money from the unemployed, pensioners, doctors or educators. In March 2019, the National Police opened a number of criminal proceedings over alleged fraud with the party’s funding.
In February 2020, the CHESNO movement wrote that Batkivshchyna was financed by companies with signs of fictitiousness for UAH 3 million.
Representation in the regions:
Rating:
