Svoboda (political party): Difference between revisions

The All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" (Ukrainian: Всеукраїнське об’єднання «Свобода», Vseukrayinske obyednannia "Svoboda"), translated as Freedom, is a Ukrainian nationalist political party^[2][7]

Svoboda is currently one of the five major parties of the country.^[8] Founded in 1991 as the Social-National Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Соціал-національна партія України), the party has acted as a proponent of nationalism and anti-communism in Ukrainian politics, and has been a member of the Alliance of European National Movements (AENM) since 2009.^[2][9] It is positioned on the right of the Ukrainian political spectrum, and is often referred to as being far-right.^[6][10]

During the 2009 and 2010 local elections in Galicia, the party made significant gains and became a major force in local government.^[11][12] In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Svoboda won its first seats in the Ukrainian Parliament,^[13] garnering 10.44% of the popular vote and the 4th most seats among national political parties.^[14] The current party leader (elected every two years^[15]) is Oleh Tyahnybok, who has held the role since February 2004.^[2]

The Social-National Party of Ukraine was established as a party on October 16, 1995;^[1][16] although the original movement was founded in September 1991. Membership was restricted to ethnic Ukrainians, and for a period the party did not accept atheists or former members of the Communist Party.^{[citation needed]} The party's campaign during the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary elections presented the party as separate from both communist and social democrat platforms.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1998 parliamentary elections the party joined a bloc of parties (together with the All-Ukrainian Political Movement "State Independence of Ukraine")^[17] called "Less Words" (Ukrainian: Менше слів), which collected 0.16% of the national vote.^[16][18][19] Party member Oleh Tyahnybok^[20] was voted into the Ukrainian Parliament in this election.^[20] He became a member of the People's Movement of Ukraine fraction.^[20]

The party established the paramilitary organization Ukraine’s Patriot in 1999 as an "Association of Support" for the Military of Ukraine.^[2] The same year, Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism of Tel-Aviv University wrote in its 1999 annual report: "The Ukrainian Social National Party is an extremist, right-wing, nationalist organization which emphasizes its identification with the ideology of German National Socialism".^[21]

The party did not participate in the 2002 parliamentary elections.^[16] But as a member of Victor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc Tyahnybok was reelected to the Ukrainian parliament.^[20]

The Social-National Party of Ukraine changed its name to the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" in February 2004 with the arrival of Oleh Tyahnybok as party leader.^[2] It moved to improve its image, replacing the "I + N" ("Idea Natsii" ukr. "idea of a nation") Wolfsangel logo by a three-fingered hand reminiscent of a 'Tryzub' pro-independence gesture of the late 1980s, also pushing out neo-Nazi and racist elements. One such neo-fascist group, Ukraine’s Patriot,^[9] now operating independently of Svoboda, continue to use a form of the Wolfsangel revised to no longer be interpreted as "I + N."^[2] The groups parted ways in 2007.^{[22][third-party source needed]}

In 2004 Tyahnybok was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction for a speech calling for Ukrainians to fight against a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia" - using two highly insulting words to describe Russians and Jews.^[20][23][9]

In the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party received 0.76% of the votes cast,^[16] more than double their share during the 2006 parliamentary elections, when they received 0.36%.^[16]

In the autumn of 2009, Svoboda joined the Alliance of European National Movements as the only organisation from outside the European Union.^[2]

During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections the party won between 20-30% of the votes in Eastern Galicia, where it became one of the main forces in local government.^[11] The 2009 provincial elections in Ternopil had previously been the greatest success of the Svoboda party, when it won 34.4 per cent of votes cast.^[12] During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, Svoboda surpassed this figure, accounting for 5.2% of the vote nationwide.^[24] Analysts explained Svoboda’s victory in Galicia during the 2010 elections as a result of the policies of the Azarov Government, who were seen as too pro-Russian by the electorate.^[24][25][26] According to Andreas Umland, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,^[27] Svoboda's increasing exposure in the Ukrainian media has contributed to its recent successes.^[26]

Between 2004 and 2010, party membership increased threefold to 15,000 members^[2] (traditionally party membership is low in Ukraine^[28][29][30]).

As of 2011, Svoboda has factions in eight of Ukraine's 25 regional councils, and in three of those Svoboda is the biggest faction.^[31] Umland and novelist Andrey Kurkov have accused the Party of Regions of giving "unofficial support" to Svoboda to make their main opponent, BYuT, weaker.^[26][32] Reportedly, the members and supporters of Svoboda are predominantly young people.^[2]

Several clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are representatives of Svoboda.^[33] According to the party, they were chosen on election lists "to counterbalance opponents who include “Moscow priests” in their election lists and have aspirations to build the “Russian World” in Ukraine".^[33] Per the party's desire to separate the clergy from politics, all churchmen will be recalled if a draft Constitution of Ukraine proposed by the party is approved.^[33]

In July 2012 the party agreed with Batkivshchyna on the distribution of the candidates in single-seat constituencies in the October 2012 parliamentary elections.^[34] In the run up to these elections various opinion polls predicted the national vote (in a parliamentary election) of the party to sixfolded or sevenfolded which would make it possible that the party would pass the 5% election threshold^[35][36] But the parties results in the elections where much better then that with 10,44% (almost a fourteenfold of its votes compared with the 2007 parliamentary elections^[16][9]) of the national votes and 38 out of 450 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament.^[37][38] At the at 116 foreign polling stations Svoboda won most votes of all parties with 23,63% of all votes.^[39] In Kiev it became the second most popular party, after Fatherland, and voting analysis showed it was the party most popular among voters with a higher education (about 48% of its voters had a higher education).^[40] Oleh Tyahnybok was elected leader of the party's parliamentary faction (also) on 12 December 2012.^[41]

According to BBC correspondents David Stern the party has tapped a vast reservoir of protest votes because of its anti-corruption stance and because it has soften its own image.^[9]

Svoboda's ideological base is derived from Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Yaroslav Stetsko's "Two Revolutions" doctrine (written in 1951).^[42][43] The essence of this doctrine is: "the revolution will not end with the establishment of the Ukrainian state, but will go on to establish equal opportunities for all people to create and share material and spiritual values and in this respect the national revolution is also a social one".^[42]

Svoboda is a Ukrainian nationalist party and in favour of a purely presidential regime.^[26][44] This led to comparisons between Svoboda and the pro-Russian Party of Regions; however, the party often voices opposition to perceived Russian influences in Ukraine.^[26] The party is known for its anti-Communist stance, and several party activists over the years have been accused of trying to destroy Communist-era statues.^{[44][45][46][47][48]}

According to party leader Oleh Tyahnybok, Svoboda is not an ‘extremist’ party; he said that "depicting nationalism as extremism is a cliché rooted in Soviet and modern globalist propaganda".^[31] He also stated that "countries like" Japan and Israel are fully nationalistic states, "but nobody accuses the Japanese of being extremists".^[31] According to Tyahnybok, the party's view of nationalism "shouldn’t be mixed with chauvinism or fascism, which means superiority of one nation over another," and that its platform is called “Our Own Authorities, Our Own Property, Our Own Dignity, on Our Own God-Given Land.”^[49]

The party's agenda is expressed in an article titled "Nationalism and pseudonationalism" published on the official website of the party. Svoboda member Andriy Illienko calls for a "social and national revolution in Ukraine," a "major shift in [the] political, economic, [and] ethical system", and the "dismantling [of] the liberal regime of antinational occupation". Illienko explains that "only the revolution can now prevent Ukraine from the brink, and make it the first modern nationalist state that will ensure continuous development of the Ukrainian nation, and show other nations the path to genuine sovereignty and prosperity."^{[50][third-party source needed]}. Illienko continues that cultural details are not important for a nationalist who "must wake up with the idea that he is a metal political soldier of Nation." ("Націоналіст... забов'язаний просинатися з думкою, що він – залізний політичний солдат Нації..."). This document sets up the enemy of Svoboda, a pseudonationalist, a person who wants "all-ukrainian values" ("українськість","щоб все було українське") and adheres to "conventional liberalism [of] 'civilized' Western democracy and capitalism." Another attribute of a pseudonationalist is the belief in "Free market", "democracy", "fighting authoritarianism" [the quotes are from the original document].

The party views the dominating role of Ukraine's oligarchy as "devastating".^{[51][third-party source needed]} While oligarchs have typically played a major role in the funding of other Ukrainian parties,^[52][53] In 2004 Tyahnybok referred to the "the Moscow-Jewish mafia which today runs Ukraine".^[54][23] Svoboda claims to receive no financial support from oligarchs, but rather from Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses.^{[55][third-party source needed]}

The party seeks to put a stop to immigration into Ukraine, and to make sure that only ethnic Ukrainians can be employed as civil servants.^[54]

A book published by Svoboda's ideologue^{[clarification needed]} Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn in 2010 contained German sources in content and bibliography, including writings by Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser, as well as Joseph Goebbels.^[56] Elsewhere Mykhalchyshyn referred to the Holocaust as a "period of Light in history".^[57] Mykhalchyshyn, who is a Svoboda member of parliament, "often quotes former German Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as other Third Reich luminaries like Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser".^[54][9]

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (November 2012)

Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok (in January 2011) has described the Azarov Government and the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych "a Kremlin colonial administration",^[31] referencing Svoboda's opposition to perceived Russian influences in Ukrainian politics.

Points in the Svoboda party programme (have) include(d) (In the official election program that Svoboda filed with the Central Election Commission of Ukraine before the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election most of there radical points vanished from the official election program.^[40]):

• Criminal prosecution for “Ukrainophobia”^[26]
• Only those born in Ukraine can become Ukrainian citizens, with the exceptions for those who have lived in Ukraine for more than 15 years, know the Ukrainian language, culture and Constitution^[40]
• Renunciation of the 2010 Kharkiv agreements^[40]
• Impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych^[40]
• Ban on abortion, except in cases of medical necessity, or rape.^[40]
• The right to bear arms^[40]
• Re-privatization of major enterprises, greater state control of the banking system and a ban on privatization of land^[40]
• The restoration of the Soviet practice of indicating the ethnic origin in passports and on birth certificates^[26][9]
• Proportional representation on executive bodies of ethnic Ukrainians, on the one hand, and national minorities, on the other^[26][9]
• Ban on adoptions by non-Ukrainians of Ukrainian children^[26]
• Preferential treatment for Ukrainian students in the allocation of dormitory places, and a series of similar changes to existing legal provisions^[26]
• Ordained persons should have no right to be elected to state authorities or local self-government authorities^[33]
• Abolish Crimean autonomy^[2]
• Abolish VAT^[2]
• Farmlands are to be state-owned and given to farmers in hereditary use^[2]
• The state is to implement a firm pro-family policy^[2]
• Dismissal of employees of state structures who had been active in the Soviet apparatus before 1991^[2]
• Decommunisation of public space (monuments, names of streets and places)^[2]
• Russia should apologise "for its communist crimes"^[2]
• Ukraine is to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States "and other post-Soviet structures"^[2]
• An explicit guarantee of accession to NATO within a set period of time^[2]
• Ukraine should again re-acquire tactical nuclear weapons^[2]

Svoboda also states in its programme that it is both possible and necessary to make Ukraine the “geopolitical centre of Europe”.^[26] The European Union is not mentioned in the programme.^[2]

The party has been accused of racism and antisemitism,^{[by whom?]} which the it denies.^[49][13] Tyahnybok says a criminal case was opened against him for inciting ethnic hatred, but he managed to win all the court cases and protect his name.^[49]

Ukrainian media associated with the Party of Regions, the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Russophile groups have tried to link the party to Nazism.^[2]

In the "2012 Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs", as published in December 2012 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Svoboda was ranked at number 5.^[58]

Andreas Umland, a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,^[27] has asserted that "Svoboda is a racist party promoting explicitly ethnocentric and anti-Semitic ideas".^[59] He also believes that internally, Svoboda "is much more radical and xenophobic than what we see”.^[37] However, Umland has also stated that he believes the party will continue to become more moderate over time, stating that "there's a belief that Svoboda will change, once in the Verkhovna Rada, and that they may become proper national democrats."^[9] According to Tadeusz Olszański of the Centre for Eastern Studies, the party's unofficial program,^{[clarification needed]} "implicit in statements and actions by members of Svoboda," is racist.^[2] He also claims "it is practically impossible to hold rational debates with Svoboda's programme".^[2]

New York based^[60] journalist Palash Ghosh believes that racism seems to be a core party ideology; being anti-semitic and anti-non-white.^[54]

Svoboda members have denied the party is anti-Semitic.^[61][62][63] Party leader Tyahnybok stated in November 2012 “Svoboda is not an anti-Semitic party, Svoboda is not a xenophobic party. Svoboda is not an anti-Russian party. Svoboda is not an anti-European party. Svoboda is simply and only a pro-Ukrainian party”.^[37] In the official election program that Svoboda filed with the Central Election Commission of Ukraine before the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election most of there radical points vanished from the official election program.^[40]

Igor Miroshnichenko, Svoboda deputy leader and member of parliament drew criticism from Jewish organisations in December 2012 for writing on his Facebook wall that American actress Mila Kunis, who was born in the Ukrainian SSR, is ”not Ukrainian but a zhydovka,"^[64] which they contended was a slur.^[65][54][9] Both Ukrainian academics and Svoboda argued that in the Ukrainian language the word does not have the anti-semitic connotations that it always does in the Russian language^[66][64]; the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice declared that Miroshnichenko's use of the word was legal because it is an archaic term for Jew, and not necessarily a slur.^[64][65] Svoboda has repeatedly stated that it will not stop using such words, which it says are legitimate Ukrainian parlance.^[64]

Former members of Svoboda have criticized the organization for requiring prospective members to submit their birth certificates and internal passports in order to verify their ethnicity.^[67]

In 2011 the party was accused by some Ukrainian media and political analysts of being used by Party of regions to limit the electorate of its main national opponents Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko and other civic nationalist parties;^[2] this has been denied by the party.^[68]

Autonomous Republic, region, city, state value	Flag	Place taken in the region	Votes «support» on partyUkrainian parliamentary election, 2006	% Votes «support»	Place taken in the region	Votes «support» party, on Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2007	% votes «support»	Place taken in the region	Votes «support» in 2010Ukrainian Presidential elections for Oleh Tyahnybok	% Votes «support»
Autonomous Republic of Crimea		34	532	0.05%	16	827	0.09%	11	2528	0.25%
Vinnytsia Oblast		23	1374	0.14%	8	4120	0.47%	9	11401	1.26%
Volyn Oblast		15	3347	0.55%	7	8215	1.45%	7	19472	3.31%
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast		31	1853	0.10%	11	4471	0.27%	9	11657	0.63
Donetsk Oblast		34	835	0.03%	13	2123	0.08%	10	4706	0.19%
Zhytomyr Oblast		28	942	0.13%	9	2566	0.39%	8	6863	0.99%
Zakarpattia Oblast		32	1027	0.17%	7	2670	0.54%	11	5527	1.02%
Zaporizhia Oblast		33	609	0.06%	12	1968	0.21%	10	4870	0.48%
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast		7	10266	1.28%	3	26792	3.41%	5	38346	4.95%
Kiev Oblast		20	1904	0.19%	7	6146	0.67%	8	14783	1.56%
Kirovohrad Oblast		27	728	0.13%	11	1207	0.25%	9	3959	0.77%
Luhansk Oblast		33	429	0.03%	15	798	0.06%	10	2810	0.21%
Lviv Oblast		6	33829	2.23%	4	45681	3.06%	5	79011	5.35%
Mykolaiv Oblast		29	702	0.11%	11	1137	0.20%	9	3783	0.62%
Odessa Oblast		28	1338	0.12%	13	1771	0.17%	9	6119	0.52%
Poltava Oblast		25	1339	0.15%	10	2378	0.30%	8	9779	1.21%
Rivne Oblast		20	1439	0.22%	7	6680	1.12%	7	16879	2.70%
Sumy Oblast		23	903	0.13%	11	1335	0.21%	9	5016	0.79%
Ternopil Oblast		7	13317	1.97%	3	22886	3.44%	5	31659	4.89%
Kharkiv Oblast		24	1556	0.10%	12	2928	0.22%	10	8361	0.57%
Kherson Oblast	File:Kherson flag.jpg	34	402	0.07%	12	1010	0.20%	9	4046	0.75%
Khmelnytskyi Oblast		18	2457	0.31%	7	3461	0.48%	8	12726	1.70%
Cherkasy Oblast		18	1670	0.23%	7	4851	0.73%	9	8634	1.26%
Chernivtsi Oblast		19	1903	0.41%	7	3129	0.76%	8	5167	1.18%
Chernihiv Oblast		29	743	0.11%	11	1645	0.28%	9	4887	0.81%
Kiev		17	5490	0.37%	7	17105	1.25%	9	27635	1.93%
City of Sevastopol		35	105	0.05%	16	170	0.09%	11	603	0.29%
Constituency of polling stations located abroad		9	295	0.85%	4	590	2.28%	6	1055	3.29%
Ukraine		18	91321	0.36%	8	178660	0.76%	8	352282	1.43%

Oblast council	Flag	Total council members	Svoboda %	Svoboda individual seats won	Svoboda total seats won
Ternopil oblast council		120	34,69%	—	50
Lviv oblast council		116	25,98%	16	41
Ivano-Frankivsk oblast council		114	16,60%	5	17
Volyn oblast council		80	7,44%	1	6
Rivne oblast council		80	6,34%	1	5
Chernivtsi oblast council		104	3,90%		4
Kyiv oblast council		148	3,48%	0	5
Khmelnytskyi oblast council		104	4,06%	0	5

2006		2007
2010 (January — Oleh Tyahnybok)		2010 (October, local election)

• Ukrainian nationalism
• Alliance of European National Movements

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