What the 21 July 2019 vote meant for Ukraine's parliament
A look back at the snap parliamentary election that reshaped the Verkhovna Rada and handed the president's party a majority.
What did Ukrainians decide when they voted on 21 July 2019, and how did it look on 23 July 2019, two days later? The election chose a new Verkhovna Rada after President Volodymyr Zelensky dissolved the previous parliament in May.
A vote brought forward
The ballot had originally been scheduled for the end of October. It was moved earlier after Zelensky, newly inaugurated, dissolved parliament on 21 May 2019, during his inauguration. The result was a parliament elected only two months after that decision.
Who entered the Rada
Five parties cleared the threshold for seats: Servant of the People, Opposition Platform – For Life, European Solidarity, the Batkivshchyna union and Holos. In addition, 199 deputies were elected under the majoritarian system in single-member constituencies.
Servant of the People, the president's party, won most of the seats with a comfortable majority. Later tallies put its total at 254 seats, an outright majority in the chamber.
What it implied
The outcome meant that the president's party, rather than a coalition of several factions, held the largest block in the new Rada. The dissolution and the early vote had therefore been followed by a result that gave the party of the head of state a majority of the seats in the chamber. The presence of four other parties, along with a large group of single-member constituency deputies, meant the chamber would still include a range of other political forces.
