Batkivshchyna

History

Early history

The predecessor of the party is the Association of Peace-loving Forces "Batkivshchyna", founded in 1995 by Volodymyr Prisnyakov, a rector at Dnipropetrovsk National University. In 1998 Yulia Tymoshenko was elected a people's deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Bobrynets constituency in Kirovohrad Oblast. In 1999 Tymoshenko created a parliamentary group called "Batkivshchyna" as a breakaway group of Hromada. On 14 September 1998, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine accused Hromada leader Pavlo Lazarenko of embezzlement, and in the following March, Tymoshenko established the "Fatherland" parliamentary group. On 9 July 1999, based on the parliamentary group and smaller party, a new political party – All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" – was founded its constituent congress. On the same day, the Charter of the party was approved. According to which the party is entrusted with the main duties to protect the interests of the Ukrainian people in their struggle for the independence of Ukraine, the preservation of national identity, the European future of the country and a decent life for all its citizens. The first party chairman was elected Viktor Drachenko, a former Communist Party secretary from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The party was registered by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on 16 September 1999 under certificate number 122. At the second congress, held on 18 December of the same year, Yulia Tymoshenko was elected chairman of the party, replacing Drachenko.

Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc

In the 2002 parliamentary elections, the party was the main constituent of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. The bloc obtained 22 seats in the parliament—13 of whom were allocated to Batkivshchyna.

In January 2005, Tymoshenko became Prime Minister of Ukraine under Viktor Yushchenko's presidency. Several months earlier, she was a leader in the Orange Revolution which enabled Yushchenko's election.

After losing several seats in 2002 and 2003, the bloc had grown to 40 members by September 2005. In March 2005, the Yabluko party merged with Batkivshchyna. However, in March 2007, Yabluko became the Party of Free Democrats and withdrew from Batkivshchyna. In late 2005, the United Ukraine party also merged with Batkivshchyna. In the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections the party was part of the Tymoshenko Bloc, which won 129 of 450 seats in 2006 (22.29 percent of the total vote) and 156 of 450 seats (30.71 percent of the total vote) in 2007.

On 18 December 2007, Yulia Tymoshenko was reelected prime minister by a two-vote margin, making Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc a majority coalition. Since 2008, the party has been an observer member of the European People's Party.

In 2009 Batkivshchyna put Tymoshenko forward as a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine. After its defeat in the elections, the parliamentary coalition ceased to exist, and Tymoshenko's cabinet was dismissed. Tymoshenko stated on 22 February 2010 that she would go into opposition. During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections party (political blocs were not permitted to compete in the election) was defeated by the rival Party of Regions in nearly all regions of Ukraine, although it remained the main opposition party. Although Batkivshchyna won seats in 19 of 24 regional parliaments, it did not win a seat in the Supreme Council of Crimea. In Lviv Oblast and Kyiv Oblast as well as in Ternopil the party did not participate in the elections cause it was unable to register its candidates. Yulia Tymoshenko claimed that "fraudulent Batkivshchyna party organisations were registered on orders from Viktor Yanukovych".

Batkivshchyna – United Opposition

On 16 November 2010, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc in the Verkhovna Rada was renamed the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko-Batkivshchyna. During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, several criminal cases were opened against Tymoshenko. On 5 August 2011, Tymoshenko was arrested. On 11 October, she was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of abuse of power and official authority when entering into gas contracts with Russia in January 2009. The Danish Helsinki Committee, observing the trial, came to the conclusion that it was politically motivated and included violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. Between 2010 and 2013, the European Parliament adopted six resolutions in which the persecution of Tymoshenko was named "politically motivated selective justice".

On 17 November 2011, party blocs were again banned in parliamentary elections. The following month, Batkivshchyna and the People's Self-Defense party announced that the latter would merge with the former, and on 28 December first deputy head of the party Oleksandr Turchynov said, "I believe that other political forces will join us".

Batkivshchyna, the former Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc member Reforms and Order Party and the People's Movement of Ukraine announced their intention to submit a single party list in the March 2012 parliamentary elections. On 7 April, Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced that the Front for Change party would join them on the single-party list.

On 6 June 2012, Vyacheslav Kutovy and Volodymyr Kupchak left the party; Kupchak he had been threatened by party leader Yatsenyuk and the party had "betrayed Yulia Tymoshenko, who had sparked the protest movement Rise up, Ukraine!". In July 2012, Batkivshchyna agreed with the Svoboda party on the distribution of single-member district candidates in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Two weeks before the 28 October election, Batkivshchyna withdrew 26 parliamentary candidates in favour of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR); UDAR withdrew 26 of its single-seat candidates in favour of Batkivshchyna candidates, attempting to maximise the opposition vote.

Batkivshchyna was a de facto umbrella party in the election, whose election list included members of the Reforms and Order, People's Movement of Ukraine, Front for Change, For Ukraine!, People's Self-Defense, Civil Position and Social Christian parties. In July 2012, members of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People joined the list, known as the Fatherland United Opposition. Front for Change leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk headed the list due to Tymoshenko's imprisonment. The list won 62 seats and 25.55 percent of the vote under the proportional party-list system (down from 30.71 percent in 2007 for the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc), and another 39 in simple-majority constituencies. Competing in 152 of 225 constituencies, they won a total of 101 seats, 22.67 percent of the 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada. The party lost about two million votes, compared with the results of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc in the previous election. Yatsenyuk was temporarily elected leader of this parliamentary faction on 12 December 2012. On 19 October 2012, Batkivshchyna and Svoboda signed an agreement for "the creation of a coalition of democratic forces in the new parliament". The party also coordinated its parliamentary activities with UDAR.

2013 unification

In December 2012, the parties which aligned with Batkivshchyna in the 2012 parliamentary elections considered forming a single party. On 15 June 2013, the Reforms and Order Party and the Front for Change merged with Batkivshchyna. A portion of the People's Movement of Ukraine (including former chairman Borys Tarasyuk) also merged. The remainder of the party had merged with the Ukrainian People's Party the previous month. During the same congress, the party also approved Tymoshenko's nomination as its candidate for the 2015 Ukrainian presidential election, with all 482 delegates supporting the candidature of Tymoshenko.

Euromaidan and return to government

The party played a substantial role in the anti-government Euromaidan protests, which began in late November 2013 and culminated on the 21 February 2014 impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych after the February 2014 Ukrainian revolution, during which Tymoshenko was released from jail and officially rehabilitated. Immediately after the revolution, the Ukrainian Supreme Court closed the case and found that "no crime was committed". The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg acknowledged political persecution and torture and stopped studying the criminal cases against Yulia Tymoshenko dated 2011–2014. After Yanukovych's ousting, and return of the 2004 Constitution, a ruling coalition was formed, which included Batkivshchyna, UDAR and Svoboda. This coalition put together a coalition government headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Yulia Tymoshenko began to reform the party following the revolution. In early August 2014, Batkivshchyna expelled more than 1,500 members, including more than 700 deputies, in a lustration campaign.

The party has its own Batkivshchyna Battalion that has fought in the War in Donbas since May 2014.

Post-Euromaidan 2014 parliamentary elections and split of People's Front

On 22 September 2014, the Central Election Commission made the decision to register Batkivshchyna in a nationwide multi-member constituency at the extraordinary elections to the Verkhovna Rada. Batkivshchyna garnered 894,837 votes (5.68%) in the elections, which meant that it was admitted to the 8th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with 17 seats on party lists, and two seats in majority constituencies. Following the elections the party became a member of the coalition supporting the current second Yatsenyuk Government and had one minister in this government.

On 11 December 2014, parliament supported Yulia Tymoshenko's initiative calling for the release of Nadiya Savchenko. On 25 May 2016, Savchencko was exchanged in a prisoner swap for two Russian GRU officers captured by Ukraine. (Technically, she was granted a pardon by president Vladimir Putin.)

On 17 February 2016, Batkivshchyna withdrew from the Second Yatsenyuk Government following a vote in the Rada to remove Yatsenyuk from his position, which was rejected by a majority.

The party did not join the coalition that supports the Groysman Government, which was installed on 14 April 2016.

During the 17 July 2016 constituency mid-term elections, the party won two additional seats in the Ukrainian parliament.

On 15 December 2016, Batkivshchyna expelled the number 1 on its 2014 parliamentary election list—Nadiya Savchenko—from its parliamentary faction in response to her earlier meeting with separatist leaders Aleksandr Zakharchenko (of the Donetsk People's Republic) and Igor Plotnitsky (of the Luhansk People's Republic). The party saw this meeting as "negotiations with terrorists" and "adamantly opposed" it.

According to the Central Election Commission, the results of local elections in 2015 resulted in Batkivshchyna placing second in Ukraine. Batkivshchyna was represented by 8,016 deputies in local councils, and by 369 deputies as heads of villages, towns and cities. In comparison to the 2014 parliamentary elections, Batkivshchyna was able to increase its representation by 250%.

2019 presidential election and parliamentary election

In the presidential election of March 2019, Yulia Tymoshenko stood as presidential candidate for Batkivshchyna, scoring 13.40 percent (2,532,452 votes) and not reaching the second turn. She endorsed neither Zelenskyy nor Poroshenko.

In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the top 5 of the party list were Tymoshenko, Serhiy Taruta, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Serhiy Sobolyev, and Olena Kondratyuk. In early June, Tymoshenko announced that the party will not be part of opposition to President Zelenskyy if it is not included in the ruling coalition formed after the next elections. In the snap parliamentary election of 2019 Batkivschyna slightly improved its performance, scoring 8.18% (1,196,303) and electing 26 MPs. The party abstained from the confidence vote to the new Honcharuk Government, but ensured it would support the government from outside. However, on 13 November 2019, the party went into opposition.

Parliamentary activity in the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation (2019–present)

The Batkivshchyna faction in the Verkhovna Rada of the ninth convocation has 24 deputies. The head of the faction is Yulia Tymoshenko, and the first deputy is Sergei Sobolev. The faction was created on 29 August 2019.

On the first day of the 9th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, Tymoshenko's faction supported the bill on lifting parliamentary immunity.

On 3 September 2019, Batkivshchyna supported the referral to the Constitutional Court of a bill to reduce the number of deputies.

In November 2019, after the parliament passed a bill to lift the moratorium on land sales, the leader of the Batkivshchyna faction Yulia Tymoshenko announced her transition to opposition to the ruling Servant of the People party.

On 18 November 2019, Tymoshenko appealed to the Constitutional Court to immediately consider the petition for the bill on the "land market".

In December 2019, Tymoshenko united more than 40 political and public organizations that oppose the sale of land in the National Headquarters for the Protection of Native Land. On 15 December 2019, the National Headquarters approved demands to President Volodymyr Zelensky that it be necessary to postpone the adoption of "land laws", extend the moratorium and announce a referendum. The National Corps also joined the all-Ukrainian protest action initiated by the National Headquarters for the Protection of the Motherland.

On 19 December 2019, Yulia Tymoshenko and Batkivshchyna deputies addressed the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine with a statement pointing to conflicts of interest and corruption in the Parliamentary Committee on Agrarian Policy during the consideration of the law on land sales.

On 11 January 2021, Tymoshenko called on the authorities to provide Ukrainians with gas at a price no higher than the purchase price. According to Tymoshenko, the price of gas should not exceed ₴3, in this regard, Batkivshchyna registered a bill in parliament No. 1177.

2020 local elections

According to the results of the CEC, Batkivshchyna, which received 4,093 deputy mandates (12.39%), became one of the party leaders in the 2020 Ukrainian local elections. 7.24% of the elected mayor of a village, town or city was a member of Batkivshchyna.

Ideology and stances

A comparative analysis of Batkivshchyna's election programs between 2002 and 2012 reveals some changes. However, the overall political orientation can be identified as weakly articulated, with a slight dominance of the "left" vector due to "left" statements belonging to the sphere of "social policy". Economically, the party developed the concept of "solidarism" as a third way between capitalism and socialism.

The party is classified as overall centre-left by Razumkov Centre as well as political scientists such as Mats Öhlén of the Centre for European Policy Studies. According to Öhlén, the party has a "clearly left-leaning party profile", and despite expressing both centre-left and centre-right stances, Batkivshchyna implemented a series leftist policies that were "hardly in line with a centre-right position". The party is a collection of different ideological groups and also includes socialist and social-democrats; Batkivshchyna also expressed interest in joining the Party of European Socialists, and shocked the pundits by eventually settling with the European People's Party instead.

Batkivshchyna supports the social democratic model of the economy and advocates for significant social guarantees and the need to reduce the social polarization between the rich and poor in Ukraine. Additionally, the party also supports the introduction of a luxury tax, opposes privatization of state-owned enterprises as well as the agriculture. In regards to trade, the Batkivshchyna promotes a protectionist system that would protect national industries.

The party manifesto archived in 2016 claims that it seeks to instill in Ukraine national, democratic, and Christian values, held together through reformation, spirituality, patriotism, national solidarity, responsibility, rights and freedoms. The party advocates transforming Ukraine into a competitive nation-state based on a western Europe model of justice and welfare.

According to the party, only citizens of Ukraine will have the right to private ownership of land, but that "high concentration of land ownership by one person" will be forbidden.

The party sees Ukrainian membership in the European Union as a strategic goal. It favours visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the EU and intends to "cancel humiliating visa regimes". It would like to see "a mutually beneficial and equitable agreement on the establishment of free trade with Russia". In June 2013, the party's parliamentary faction voted for the denunciation of the 2010 Ukrainian–Russian Naval Base for Natural Gas treaty.

Associated and merged parties

Associated in electoral block

(2002–2012) Ukraine – Forward! as the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party

(2002–2006) Ukrainian Platform "Assembly" as the Ukrainian People's Party "Assembly"

(2002–2006) Ukrainian Republican Party (temporary merger with Assembly)

(2007–2012) Reforms and Order Party

Merged

(2001) Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party

(2005–2007) Party of Free Democrats as Apple (temporarily)

(2012) Reforms and Order Party, People's Self-Defense, Front for Change, People's Movement of Ukraine, For Ukraine!, Social Christian Party, Civil Position (members of this party were on its election list in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election)

(2013) Reforms and Order Party and Front for Change

Election results

Young Batkivshchyna

The Young Batkivshchyna is the youth wing of the party. It was established in 2007 and has cells in all regions of Ukraine. It has been a member of the International Union of Young Democrats since 2009 and the youth of the European People's Party since 2011. The head of the organization was Sergey Mitrofansky as of September 2021.

The leader of the Batkivshchyna party introduced a competition for talented Ukrainian students to receive a scholarship named after Yulia Tymoshenko, who will enter the Nova School of Business and Economics in Portugal.