National Democracy (Ukraine)

National Democracy (Націонал-демократія), also abbreviated as Natsdems (Нацдемів) and sometimes referred to as Orangeism (Помаранчевізм), is a political ideology in Ukraine. Since 1989, it has been one of the country's main political ideologies, along with Russophilia. National Democracy is generally Atlanticist and pro-European in foreign policy, being sceptical to closer relations with Russia. Domestically, it is socially and economically liberal, as well as anti-communist. It is positioned on the centre-right of the political spectrum, having historically been on the left.

National Democracy was preceded by the Ukrainian dissident movement during the Brezhnev era. Traditionally, National Democracy has been particularly popular in Western Ukraine, as well as, to a lesser extent, Central Ukraine. Two Presidents of Ukraine have been associated with National Democracy: Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko. It is not to be confused with Ukrainian nationalism, which is politically located to the right of National Democracy and ideologically opposed to it.

Creation, Ukrainian People's Republic, and interwar
National Democracy has its origins in the late 19th century, when Ivan Franko and Yulian Bachynsky, two left-wing Ukrainian politicians and cultural figures in Austria-Hungary, developed the ideology. It subsequently spread in Dnieper Ukraine, then under the Russian Empire, and quickly became the leading revolutionary ideology among Ukrainians living in the empire. Stanislav Dnistrianskyi, a leading ideologist of National Democracy during this period, expressed the view that states established on the basis of ethnicity possessed unique cultures of statehood. According to Dnistrianskyi, Ukrainian state culture was based primarily on defence of the local population from foreign rule, which he claimed was in contrast to Western European states of the time. National Democrats established the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917.

During the interwar period, National Democrats shifted from the left to the political centre of Ukrainian politics under the Second Polish Republic. The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, the largest party of such an orientation, participated in Polish elections. At this time, the ideology came under threat from both increased interest in national communism on the left and Ukrainian nationalism on the right. The latter ideology took inspiration more from the Hetmanate movement and integral nationalism, seeking to establish a conservative mass movement.

Revival and Chornovil
National Democracy began to be reformulated around the time of the Revolutions of 1989, with the People's Movement of Ukraine (or Rukh) forming with inspiration from the Lithuanian Sąjūdis and Polish Solidarity. Leading the 1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution, National Democrats found their first major victory with the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, which was confirmed by the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum. After these events, former dissidents and human rights activists began organising under the slogan of "building the state".

The early successes of the renewed National Democracy were followed by a fragmentation and weakening of the National Democratic movement. The reasons for this have been attributed by National Democratic politician Volodymyr Filenko to Ukrainian independence reducing the appeal of the National Democratic movement, while journalist Yurii Doroshenko has argued that the National Democratic movement faced decline in the face of its focus on idealism and a lack of clear positions, as well as the general decline of ideological politics in Europe as a whole. Doroshenko has also pointed to the fragmentation of National Democracy in electoral politics as self-damaging, pointing to the fact that the presence of three separate National Democratic candidates (Viacheslav Chornovil, Levko Lukianenko, and Ihor Yukhnovskyi) in the 1991 Ukrainian presidential election assisted in bringing about the victory of Leonid Kravchuk.

Kravchuk initially sought out the support of National Democrats in governance, but these attempts were rejected by many of the movement's more radical voices, such as Chornovil, who had no intention of working with an ex-communist politician. Pragmatists such as Ivan Drach, Mykhailo Horyn, and Volodymyr Yavorivsky (among others) formed the Congress of National Democratic Forces in an effort to further support for Kravchuk. Following the victory of "red director" Leonid Kuchma in the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, however, Chornovil originally fought to maintain relevance by working alongside Kuchma as "constructive opposition". Despite this, Kuchma actively worked against the National Democrats, exploiting divisions between groups like Rukh and radical nationalists such as the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in order to benefit pro-Russian parties such as the Communist Party of Ukraine during the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

On 25 March 1999, Chornovil was killed in a car crash. Following his death, Rukh gradually lost much of its influence. The 1999 Ukrainian presidential election, in which Chornovil was a serious competitor, instead resulted in a contest between Kuchma and Communist leader Petro Symonenko.

1999–present
After Chornovil's death, National Democratic leadership passed to Viktor Yushchenko. As leader of the National Democratic movement, Yushchenko worked to build unity among the movement's groups, particularly in the face of increasing authoritarianism by Kuchma's government. In the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, National Democratic forces united under the Our Ukraine Bloc, run by Yushchenko, and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko. As a result of Yushchenko's efforts, Our Ukraine emerged as the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) with 113 of 450 seats.

However, National Democrats at the time faced a significant split. On the one hand were pragmatists, led by Yushchenko, who sought to compromise with Kuchma's government and members of the oligarchy in order to maintain political stability and push changes. On the other hand, were the radicals, led by Tymoshenko, who sought to work with populists in order to fight the oligarchy and centrists. This split, as well as other fractures, have come to define National Democracy in Ukraine, and much of the movement's history since 2000 has been spent infighting; from 2000 to 2001 the two wings of the movement did not cooperate at all, and from 2001 to 2003 they only did so half-heartedly.

The early 2000s were also marked by widespread movement of important centrists to the National Democrats, particularly to Yushchenko's pragmatist faction. Among these were Roman Bezsmertnyi, Petro Poroshenko, and Ivan Plyushch, while Volodymyr Lytvyn would move between the National Democrats and centrists.

Coming off the 2002–2003 Rise up, Ukraine! protests, National Democrats chose to field a single presidential candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. That would end up being Yushchenko, and, following widespread voter fraud on the part of Yushchenko's rival Viktor Yanukovych, National Democrats further strengthened their position in the Orange Revolution that propelled Yushchenko to the presidency.

Yushchenko's victory in the presidential elections marked the first time a National Democrat had ever achieved the presidency, but the movement quickly returned to the state of constant infighting in which it had previously found itself. Yanukovych subsequently regained power following the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Yushchenko's popularity continued to decline over time as a result of his failure to achieve his policies, and he shifted to the right in order to appeal to nationalists, awarding medals to nationalist leaders such as Stepan Bandera in a move that proved controversial. Tymoshenko proceeded to lose the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovych, who centralised power and ruled with the support of organised crime groups, such as the oligarchs, the Donetsk Clan, and a Yanukovych family of figures connected to him. National Democracy additionally faced threats from Ukrainian nationalists on the right, who voted for the Svoboda party.

Yanukovych was overthrown and fled the country after a 2014 revolution, bringing snap presidential elections. Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who had held political office under both Yushchenko and Yanukovych, was elected as president, claiming for himself the mantle of National Democracy.

National Democratic parties

 * Batkivshchyna
 * European Solidarity
 * People's Movement of Ukraine
 * Democratic Party of Ukraine
 * Ukrainian Republican Party
 * Our Ukraine
 * Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc
 * Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc