What the 21 July 2019 vote meant for Ukraine's parliament
A look back at the snap parliamentary election and the majority it handed to the president's party, as the country took stock on 24 July 2019.
What did Ukraine's voters decide, and what was left to settle by 24 July 2019? Three days earlier, on 21 July 2019, citizens had voted for a new Verkhovna Rada, after President Volodymyr Zelensky dissolved the previous parliament in May.
The election had originally been scheduled for the end of October. It was brought forward after Zelensky dissolved parliament on 21 May 2019, during his inauguration, so the vote came only two months later.
A new shape for the Rada
As reported at the time, five parties cleared the threshold to enter parliament: Servant of the People, Opposition Platform – For Life, European Solidarity, the Batkivshchyna party and Holos. A further 199 deputies were elected in single-member constituencies under the majoritarian part of the system.
Servant of the People, the president's party, won most of the seats with a comfortable majority. Later tallies, as the background to these events records, put its total at 254 seats, an outright majority in the chamber.
Why it mattered
The result meant the president's party did not need to assemble a coalition to carry a majority. That was the main contrast with the parliament Zelensky had dissolved. The other four parties in the party-list contest were, in effect, the opposition in the new chamber, and each held a different place on the political spectrum.
The constituency seats were a separate matter. The 199 single-member deputies were chosen individually rather than through party lists, so the final balance in the chamber depended on both parts of the vote.
The election ended the period of uncertainty that followed the dissolution of parliament. It also gave the president a legislature led by his own party for the start of his term. How that majority would be used was a question for the weeks and months after 24 July 2019.
