User:Sisuvia/sandbox

Things that need to be clarified: The supposed power struggle between Ustenko and Rudkovsky, Sadovoy and Kyva, why Ustenko was still listed as chairman of the party in official documents up to 2017, the extent of the power struggle between Ustenko, Kaplin, and Kyva, how Kyva gained control of the party, and his shift to Russophilia after adopting a pro-West position.

Timeline

2005 - Melnychenko refuses to be included in the party list for the 2006 parliamentary election over the inclusion of Andrii Derkach.

Rudkovsky's decision to abandon his position as mayor of Chernihiv in favour of being a people's deputy is condemned by local residents as well as party officials, resulting in his near expulsion.

In the Kyiv Regional Council, the Socialist Party and BYuT agree to a coalition.

2007 - In the lead up to the election, Mykola Rudkovsky was forbidden from making political comments by Moroz. However, Moroz responds that he agreed to hold and participate in early elections to "prevent bloodshed" and believed President Yushchenko would take "any steps, any violations, including criminal ones, in order to achieve the goals set for him - the reform of the government on his side". In the aftermath of the election, Moroz went fishing and caught a pike. Well actually he said he would go into journalism if his party is defeated and fails to enter the Verkohvna Rada. The head of the Socialist Party in the Verkhovna Rada in the 5th convocation Ivan Bokyi alleged electoral irregularities and submitted lawsuits to the local courts. When asked who he thought was trying to "silence" the party he claimed it was Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. He further claimed that the party's performance was due to their failure to convey the difference between democratic socialism and Soviet socialism and the electorate perceiving them as "traitors". However, Tymoshenko claims that there were falsifications in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, implicating transport minister Mykola Rudkovsky and deputy minister of internal affairs Fedir Vlad. Moroz expressed confidence that the party would re-enter the Verkhovna Rada. Multiple regional party heads laid the the blame on Moroz and demanded his resignation and replacement. Figures such as Vasyl Tsushko and Vasyl Volga were named. In response, Moroz alleged the party's poor result was the fault of regional heads. Former people's deputy for the party Volodymyr Semenovych Boyko pushed back against calls for Moroz's resignation and instead insisted on the need to cleanse the party of "scoundrels". Moroz publicly defends Yaroslav Mendus, one of those Boyko named a "scoundrel". Moroz indicated his willingness to resign as leader but his resignation is rejected by the party's political council. Moroz writes in an article that he supports the creation of an "orange" coalition between Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. Vasyl Volha is expelled from the party and would later go on to form the splinter Union of Left Forces. A party congress is scheduled for November 17 where it is planned "to summarize the results of the election campaign and decide on its future strategy". Amid reports of a potentional merger between the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) and the Socialist Party, Moroz denies the possibility. The Supreme Court fails to find any wrongdoing on the part of the Central Election Commission. However, the Socialist Party intends to bring the matter to the European Court of Human Rights. Moroz announces that he will bring the matter of his resignation to the party's congress. In the same statement, he claims to have once offered Natalia Vitrenko his role, and later hoped for Ivan Chizh and subsequently Yuriy Lutsenko to eventually succeed him. Vitrenko denies that she was ever offered leadership of the party and claims to have been unjustly expelled in 1996. In November, the party's division in Kyiv City convened a conference to examine the results of the recent election. They were critical of the role Mendus, who managed the party's advertising campaign, played in the party's poor results, and criticised the influence of "grey cardinals" over the party's direction. The conference was notably not attended by members of the party's central leadership for the first time. The same month, the party's press service reported that it advocated the creation of a "left bloc" and rejected Volodymyr Lytvyn's proposal to form a centre-left coalition. Moroz is re-elected as leader at the party congress with only one dissenting vote, Mykhailo Stepanov, who had previously nominated Stanislav Nikolaenko for the position. Yaroslav Mendus remained part of the party's political council. Moroz says he will not run for president in the next election.

2008 - Moroz was among the politicians least trusted by the public in a poll conducted by the Center for Social Research "Sofia", with 74.3% of respondents saying they mistrusted him. In February, Moroz announced that the party was considering cooperating with the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) after its recent leadership change. He further claimed that there was now a tendency among those who had left the Socialist Party to create "an independent project" to return and that to this end, Ivan Chizh's Justice Party would be dissolving and its members joining the Socialist Party. The same month, it was announced that the SDPU(o), Socialist Party, and a number of left-wing parties were "ready to develop a single platform" at a Coordination Council of the Left Forces, but claimed there was no plan to unite into a single bloc or party. In March, the parties involved in the council including the SDPU(o), Socialist Party, People's Labor Union of Ukraine, and All-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice", announced plans to form an electoral bloc called "Socialist Choice" (Соціалістичний вибір). The Progressive Socialist Party and the Communist Party decided against uniting into a single bloc over policy disagreements. In April, the All-Ukrainian Union of Leftists "Justice" merged into the Socialist Party. Moroz reiterated he did not intend to run for president in the next presidential election. Yevhen Filindash, the leader of the party's youth wing, leaves the party. Valentina Semenyuk is nominated by the party as its candidate for the presidential election in 2010.

2010 - Oleksandr Moroz resigns as chairman of the party after 20 years in the position in the aftermath of the 2010 presidential election which saw him garner only 0.4% of the vote. Upon his recommendation, Vasily Tsushko is elected as his successor and Moroz becomes the party's honorary chairman while retaining a degree of power. Yosyp Vinsky, one of the party's original founding members, blames the party's poor results in 2007 on Moroz. In an interview, Tsushko insists that the party will only be financed through party contributions so as to maintain its independence and prevent oligarchic influence. In the lead up to the 2010 local elections, Tsushko indicatede that nationalisation was no longer part of the party's program. Tsushko states that reshuffles in party personnel would occur after the local elections.

2011 - In July, the party is reportedly expelled from the Socialist International for "the non-compliance of the actions with the fundamental values ​​and principles of the International". It was accepted into the organisation as an consultative member in 2003. However, according to the minutes of the meeting of the Council of the Socialist International where the decision was undertaken, the party along with others were expelled "due to not being actively engaged in SI activities, having no representation, or not having paid membership fees for some time". The same month, Tsushko announces his intention to resign, citing his inability to split time between being chairman of the party and head of the Anti-Monopoly Committee (Ukraine). However, reports claim the true reason for his decision is his deteriorating health. In the lead up to the election, rumours surfaced that Rudkovsky was a major sponsor of the party. Moroz responded by saying the party had survived for 20 years without Rudkovsky, who had only been financing the party for the last one and a half to two years, and would continue to exist without him. Moroz further claimed that Rudkovsky depended on "the authorities and [...] other political forces" and was guided by "different principles" to those of himself. With rumours of a split occuring within the party, Rudkovsky denied the possibility while claiming the party would either "follow the path of modernisation and renewal, or everything will be mothballed,". Moroz is re-elected to the position of chairman but only manages to defeat Mykola Rudkovsky by 15 votes at a second round of voting in August. Rudkovsky is expelled from the party's political council "for actions incompatible with the party's charter" after the leadership election, before leaving the party entirely in December. Days after the leadership election, Moroz denies the possibility of merging into the Party of Regions and labelled them 'apologists for liberal politics'. Instead, the party would look into unifying centre-left forces in the country. In September, the possibility of the party joining the Party of Regions at the machinations of Rudkovsky and his supporters was brought up at a press conference. The party's deputy chairman, Denis Rusak, responded by saying the party had at the recent congress been able to remove its owners of financial capital that were changing the party's ideology and cause, and that Rudkovsky's ideology differed from that which formed the basis of the party, remarking that the latter's future in the party was dependent on his own decision. In October, plans to unite ten centre-left parties with the Socialist Party were announced and signed in November. However, the agreement fell apart when it was revealed delegates at a party congress of the Socialist Party refused to ratify it, demanding instead that the ten parties merge into the Socialist Party without any conditions. In the end, only five of the original ten other signatories, Socialist Ukraine, the Peasant Party of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Party "Children of War", Children of War - People's Party of Ukraine, and "Cossack Glory" would merge into the Socialist Party. The remaining five instead opted to merge into the United Left and Peasants. The failure of the original agreement led to Rudkovsk's resignation from the party.

2012 - Moroz resigns as chairman once again, reportedly due to his deteriorating health, and nominates Ustenko as his successor in the subsequent leadership election. He participates in the 2012 parliamentary election but fails to get elected. Subsequently, he admits that his decision to ally with the Party of Regions and Communist Party in 2006 (see 2006 political crisis) was a mistake.

2013 - The party experiences a power struggle related to the finances of the party and in a bid to prevent a split from occurring, Ustenko transfers his powers to Moroz in July. The 19th party congress is held in October and Rudkovsky is elected chairman while Ustenko is elected party leader. The party claims that Rudkovsky was re-instated as a party member during the election campaign in 2012. Both Ustenko and Rudkovsky were elected in an attempt to forge a reconciliation between the two as both reportedly had personal conflicts with each other. 2014 - Rudkovsky leaves the Party of Regions faction in the Verkhovna Rada on 20 February. He had previously written a letter of resignation from the faction in December 2013, in which he criticised the government and law enforcement agencies for their violent reaction to the Euromaidan, and another in October 2013 after he was elected chairman of the party. He introduces a bill on the impeachment of President Yanukovych a day later on 21 February. In June, Rudkovsky is elected the party's sole leader, displacing Ustenko. In response, Moroz, who had spoken out against Rudkovsky's leadership, left the party. The same month, the ousted Ustenko at a press conference asserts that he remained head of the party and that the congress which elected Rudkovsky was illegitimate. Furthermore, he alleges that Rudkovsky was planted in the party by Serhiy Lyovochkin and other members of the Party of Regions. Rudkovsky is reported to have fled the country in 2014 or 2015, possibly as a result of his status as a wanted individual by Interpol in relation to the kidnapping of Oleg Seminsky, the CEO of an gas and oil company of which Rudkovsky was co-owner. In 2018 Rudkovsky is reported to have been arrested in Dubai for holding a fake Iraqi passport, although he denies this. Later in the same year, Rudkovsky is arrested by Russian authorities and sentenced to two years in prison for throwing a stone against the Russian embassy in Ukraine in June 2014.

2015 - Embroiled in a court case launched against him by Ustenko, Rudkovsky resigns as leader of the party. He is replaced by Mykola Sadovoy in August 2015.

2016 - By 2016, the party is effectively split between Ustenko and Sadovoy. The former is listed as the head of the party in state registration bodies and controls the party's organ Tovarysh, while Sadovoy is in control of the party's governing bodies and website, with both faction using different party logos.

2017 - In July, Illia Kyva claims to have been elected the new leader at a party congress held the previous month. However, according to Pravda no congress was reported on the party website, and party members denied a congress was ever held. Serhiy Kaplin called Kyva's statement a lie and claimed Kyva had been illegally appointed. The same month, Kyva is listed as the party's chairman in the Ministry of Justice's Unified Register of Public Organizations, with Ustenko as leader of the party, making his election official. In October, Kaplin announced that he had been elected chairman at an "All-Ukrainian Congress of Socialists, Social Democrats, and Trade Unions" and that his own Social Democratic Party along with the Socialist Party, Pensioners' Party, as well as a number of trade unions had decided unite into a single bloc named "For Ordinary People". Kaplin further denounced Kyva's election as an illegal seizure, alleging that Kyva had been elected by delegates appointed by Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov and illegally entered into the party register by Minister of Justice Pavel Patrenko, and implicating Ustenko, who he claimed had been expelled from the party by the Supreme Administrative Court. The congress is reportedly attended by representatives from the Social Democratic Party of Finland, Poland, Belarus, and the Communist Party of China, but was only reported on in regional party websites.

2018 - In January, a faction of the party led by Ustenko, who consider themselves the legitimate political council and the central control commission of the party, announced that Kyva had been expelled from the party. This decision was taken after it was revealed officials belonging to the Ministry of Justice and state registrar allegedly altered and falsified documents relating to the party's charter, structure, and leadership composition. In an interview, Ustenko argues that Kyva was never elected 'leader' of the party, only its chairman, and that his appointment to that role was the result of an agreement with a "political group", later claimed to be Arsen Avakov, to secure funding for the party. Furthermore, Ustenko alleged that Avakov had intended to use the party to run for the 2019 presidential elections. Kyva asserts that he is the only legitimate head of the party after his supposed expulsion was announced. Kyva alleges that members of the Socialist Party, including those who were on the party's political council, had been in contact with the Russian government and tried to sell the party for $30 million. Ustenko is identified as one of the 'traitors' by Kyva and claims that the former had been expelled from the party 'last month'. In February, a party congress convened by Kyva approves a moratorium on convening and holding meetings at all levels while granting the power to life the moratorium to Kyva exclusively. The prosecutor's office opened criminal proceedings concerning the alleged tampering of party documents in the same month. In March, a new program was approved by the party with Kyva publicly adopting a pro-European and pro-West position. Kyva is nominated to be the party's presidential candidate in the upcoming 2019 presidential election during a party congress held in December. The adoption of a clenched-fist as the party's new logo is also made at the same congress.

2019 - Kyva loses the presidential election, gaining just 0.03% of the vote. He steps down as chairman of the Socialist Party and joins the Opposition Platform - For Life! electoral alliance in the 2019 parliamentary elections instead, supposedly to gain the Socialist Party representation in the Verkhovna Rada.