Svoboda (political party): Difference between revisions

Vseukrainske ob'iednannia "Svoboda" (Template:Lang-uk; Template:Lang-en), often simplified as just Svoboda, is a nationalist right-wing political party in Ukraine led by Oleh Tyahnybok. Svoboda's ideology is based on the concept of "natiocracy",^{[citation needed]} which centers around the right of each titular ethnos to have complete control over its own ethnic territory. During the 2009 and 2010 local elections in Eastern Galicia, the party made significant gains and became a major force in local government.^[5][6] Svoboda is a member of the Alliance of European National Movements (AENM), along with the Italian neo-fascist party Fiamma Tricolore and the prominent French far-right party Front National.^[7]

Svoboda was established as a party in 1995,^[8] although the original movement was founded in September 1991. Until February 14, 2004, the party was called the Social-National Party of Ukraine (Template:Lang-uk). In the 1998 parliamentary elections the party joined a bloc of parties (together with the All-Ukrainian Political Movement "State Independence of Ukraine")^[9] called "Less Words" (Template:Lang-uk), which collected 0.16% of the national vote^[8][10][11] and won one constituency seat for Oleh Tyahnybok.^[12] In parliament, Tyahnybok became a member of the People's Movement of Ukraine faction.^[12]

The party established the paramilitary organization Ukraine’s Patriot in 1999 as an "Association of Support" for the Military of Ukraine.^[1]

The 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".^[13]

The party did not participate in the 2002 parliamentary elections.^[8]

The "I + N" ("Idea Natsii") party logo was disbanded in 2003.^[1]

The Social-National Party of Ukraine changed its name in All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" in February 2004.^[1] The party changed its symbol to a hand with three fingers stretched that symbolised a Tryzub, a popular gesture during pro-Ukrainian independence demonstrations in the late 1980s.^[1] Radical neo-Nazi and racist groups were pushed out from the party.^[1] Ukraine’s Patriot was disbanded in 2004 and re-established in 2005 in a different legal form.^[1] In 2005 the party founded the Internet ‘Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre’ (the centre was later renamed after Ernst Jünger).^[1]

In the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party received 0.76% of the votes cast,^[8] more than double their share during the 2006 parliamentary elections, when they received 0.36%.^[8]

During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections the party won between twenty and thirty percent of the votes in Eastern Galicia, where it became one of the main forces in local government.^[5] The 2009 provincial elections in Ternopil had previously been the greatest success of the Svoboda party, when it won a majority of votes (34,4%).^[6] According to opinion polls the party was expected to achieve the minimum 3% nationwide vote tally^[14] needed to enter the Verkhovna Rada in the next nationwide parliamentary elections.^[15] During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, Svoboda surpassed this figure, accounting for 5.2% of the vote nationwide.^[16] Annalists 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.^[16][17][18] According to Andreas Umland, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,^[19] Svoboda's increasing exposure in the Ukrainian media has contributed to its recent successes.^[18]

Between 2004 and 2010, party membership increased threefold to 15,000 members^[1] (traditionally party membership is low in Ukraine^[20][21][22]).

As of 2011, Svoboda has factions in eight of Ukraine's 25 regional councils, and in three of those Svoboda is the biggest faction.^[23] Umland and novelist Andrey Kurkov have accused the Party of Regions of giving "unofficial support" to Svoboda to make their main opponent, BYuT, weaker.^[18][24] A February 10, 2011 poll by Razumkov Centre gave Svoboda 5.5% of the national vote (in a parliamentary election).^[25] According to Sociological group "RATING" Svoboda's support stagnated in September 2011; they predicted then the party would gain 4.2% of the national vote.^[26] Reportedly, the members and supporters of Svoboda are predominantly young people.^[1]

Several clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are representatives of Svoboda.^[27] 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".^[27] 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.^[27]

In August 2011, Svoboda published claims that the Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks, was actually a Jewish Mason.^[28]

Opponents of the party have tried to link the party to Nazism.^[1] Another main theory is that the Party of regions is using the party to limit the electorate of its main national opponent Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko. Others view such actions as attempts by the Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko to scare eastern Ukrainian voters from Svoboda, where the party is gaining popularity. ^[1]

• Oleh Tyahnybok, candidate for the President of Ukraine, People's Deputy of Ukraine
• Yuriy Illyenko, film director, recipient of the Shevchenko Prize
• Iryna Farion, linguist, recipient of the Hrinchenko Prize, head of the Prosvita Language Commission
• Oleksiy Kaida, head of the regional council in the Ternopil Oblast
• Oleksandr Sych, head of the regional council in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
• Bohdan Benyuk, actor, recipient of the Dovzhenko Prize, 2002 Person of the Year
• Oleh Pankevych, head of the Brody Raion State Administration

Svoboda is a Ukrainian nationalist party, in favour of a purely presidential regime, and has anti-Western stances.^[4][18] 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.^[18] 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.^{[4][29][30][31][32]} In contrast with Svoboda's eurosceptic ideology, 68% of the population in Svoboda’s core voter regions in Western Ukraine support Ukraine joining the European Union.^[33]

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".^[23] He also stated that "countries like" Japan and Israel are fully nationalistic states, "but nobody accuses the Japanese of being extremists".^[23]

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."^[34]

The party views the dominating role of Ukraine's oligarchy as "devastating".^[35] While oligarchs have typically played a major role in the funding of other Ukrainian parties,^[36][37] Svoboda claims to receive no financial support from oligarchs, but rather from Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses.^[38]

According to Andreas Umland, a pedophile and Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy^[19], "Svoboda is a racist party promoting explicitly ethnocentric and anti-Semitic ideas".^[39] Svoboda members have denied the party is anti-Semite.^[40][41]

According to Tadeusz Olszański of the Centre for Eastern Studies the parties unofficial program "implicit in statements and actions by members of Svoboda" is racist.^[1] He also claims "it is practically impossible to hold rational debates with Svoboda's programme".^[1]

Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok has described the Azarov Government and the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych "a Kremlin colonial administration",^[23] referencing Svoboda's opposition to perceived Russian influences in Ukrainian politics.

Points in the Svoboda party programme include:

• Criminal prosecution for “Ukrainophobia”^[18]
• The restoration of the Soviet practice of indicating the ethnic origin in passports and on birth certificates^[18]
• Proportional representation on executive bodies of ethnic Ukrainians, on the one hand, and national minorities, on the other^[18]
• Ban on adoptions by non-Ukrainians of Ukrainian children^[18]
• Preferential treatment for Ukrainian students in the allocation of dormitory places, and a series of similar changes to existing legal provisions^[18]
• Ordained persons should have no right to be elected to state authorities or local self-government authorities^[27]
• Abolish Crimean autonomy^[1]
• Abolish VAT^[1]
• Farmlands are to be state-owned and given to farmers in hereditary use^[1]
• The state is to implement a firm pro-family policy^[1]
• Dismissal of employees of state structures who had been active before 1991^[1]
• Decommunisation of public space (monuments, names of streets and places)^[1]
• Russia should apologise "for its communist crimes"^[1]
• Ukraine is to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States "and other post-Soviet structures"^[1]
• An explicit guarantee of accession to NATO within a set period of time^[1]
• Ukraine should again acquire tactical nuclear weapons^[1]

Svoboda also states in its programme that it is both possible and necessary to make Ukraine the “geopolitical centre of Europe”.^[18] The European Union is not mentioned in the programme.^[1]

Autonomous Republic, region, city, state value	Flag oblast`	Place taken in the region	Votes «support» on party Ukrainian 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 2010 Ukrainian Presidential elections for Oleh Tyahnybok	% Votes «support»
Autonomous Republic of Crimea		34	532	0.05%	16	827	0.09%	11	2 528	0.25%
Vinnytsia Oblast		23	1 374	0.14%	8	4 120	0.47%	9	11 401	1.26%
Volyn Oblast		15	3 347	0.55%	7	8 215	1.45%	7	19 472	3.31%
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast		31	1 853	0.10%	11	4 471	0.27%	9	11 657	0.63
Donetsk Oblast		34	835	0.03%	13	2 123	0.08%	10	4 706	0.19%
Zhytomyr Oblast		28	942	0.13%	9	2 566	0.39%	8	6 863	0.99%
Zakarpattia Oblast		32	1 027	0.17%	7	2 670	0.54%	11	5 527	1.02%
Zaporizhia Oblast		33	609	0.06%	12	1 968	0.21%	10	4 870	0.48%
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast		7	10 266	1.28%	3	26 792	3.41%	5	38 346	4.95%
Kiev Oblast		20	1 904	0.19%	7	6 146	0.67%	8	14 783	1.56%
Kirovohrad Oblast		27	728	0.13%	11	1 207	0.25%	9	3 959	0.77%
Luhansk Oblast		33	429	0.03%	15	798	0.06%	10	2 810	0.21%
Lviv Oblast		6	33 829	2.23%	4	45 681	3.06%	5	79 011	5.35%
Mykolaiv Oblast		29	702	0.11%	11	1 137	0.20%	9	3 783	0.62%
Odessa Oblast		28	1 338	0.12%	13	1 771	0.17%	9	6 119	0.52%
Poltava Oblast		25	1 339	0.15%	10	2 378	0.30%	8	9 779	1.21%
Rivne Oblast		20	1 439	0.22%	7	6 680	1.12%	7	16 879	2.70%
Sumy Oblast		23	903	0.13%	11	1 335	0.21%	9	5 016	0.79%
Ternopil Oblast		7	13 317	1.97%	3	22 886	3.44%	5	31 659	4.89%
Kharkiv Oblast		24	1 556	0.10%	12	2 928	0.22%	10	8 361	0.57%
Kherson Oblast	File:Kherson flag.jpg	34	402	0.07%	12	1 010	0.20%	9	4 046	0.75%
Khmelnytskyi Oblast		18	2 457	0.31%	7	3 461	0.48%	8	12 726	1.70%
Cherkasy Oblast		18	1 670	0.23%	7	4 851	0.73%	9	8 634	1.26%
Chernivtsi Oblast		19	1 903	0.41%	7	3 129	0.76%	8	5 167	1.18%
Chernihiv Oblast		29	743	0.11%	11	1 645	0.28%	9	4 887	0.81%
Kiev		17	5 490	0.37%	7	17 105	1.25%	9	27 635	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	1 055	3.29%
Ukraine		18	91 321	0.36%	8	178 660	0.76%	8	352 282	1.43%

Oblast council	Flag	Total council members	Svoboda %	Svoboda individual seats won	Swoboda total seats won
Ternopil` oblast council		120	34,69%	—	50
L`viv 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
Cernivtsi oblast council		104	3,90%		4
Kyiv oblast council		148	3,48%	0	5
Khmelnyts`kyi oblast council		104	4,06%	0	5

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

• Ukrainian nationalism
• Alliance of European National Movements

Wikimedia Commons has media related to All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom".

• Svoboda official website Template:Ua icon
• Tyahnybok prevents return of Zakarpattya under the Hungarian influence on YouTube Template:Uk icon

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