Party of Regions

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The Party of Regions ( Ukrainian: Партія регіонів, Russian: Партия регионов) is a Ukrainian political party created in March 2001. It originally supported president Leonid Kuchma and joined the pro-government United Ukraine alliance during the parliamentary elections on 30 March 2002. The party's leader is Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Its electoral and financial base is located primarily in the east and south-east of Ukraine, where it enjoys wide popular support. In the Eastern Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast the party claims to have over 700,000 members.

The party shifted its political ideology to the left and became much more populist in nature before the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004 and, as a result, Yanukovych won over a large part of the Communist party's electorate in eastern Ukraine. The party announced support for making Russian a second official language in Ukraine, a pro-Russian foreign policy, and increased social spending. It also advocates the regionalist ideology, and many members support making Ukraine a federation.

The Party of Regions moved to opposition after its candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, lost the 2004 presidential election. The party leader first claimed an electoral victory but strong allegations of electoral fraud triggered a series of events commonly known as the Orange Revolution. In the re-run of the presidential election ordered by the country's Supreme Court, Viktor Yanukovych lost the election to Viktor Yushchenko.

The Party claims to be a victim of a political persecution campaign organized by the new government. For example, Borys Kolesnykov, the head of the regional party branch and the Donetsk regional council, was arrested in April 2005 and charged with criminal extortion. The Party of Regions claims this is an act of political repression, while the authorities believe that Kolesnykov had links to organized crime and his arrest is a purely criminal matter. He has since been cleared of charges and released from pre-trial detention.

A map showing the results of the Party of Regions in Ukraine's oblasts during the 2006 parliamentary election. (In Russian)

At the parliamentary elections on 26 March 2006, the party gained 32,12% of votes and 186 (out of 450) seats in Verkhovna Rada, forming the largest parliamentary group.

[edit] Recent political changes

On July 6, 2006 Socialist Party abandoned the so-called "Orange Coalition" with Our Ukraine, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. The new parliamentary majority was formed led by Party of Regions and joined by Communist Party. The “anti-crisis coalition,” as it was named was announced on July 10 and nominated Viktor Yanukovych for the post of prime minister.