Democratic Bloc (Ukraine)

The Democratic Bloc ( uk, Демократичний Блок; ''Demokratychnyi Blok'') was a political alliance and an electoral bloc in Ukraine founded during the election campaign to participate in the parliamentary election held in March 1990.

History

The elections in the spring of 1990 were the first where the Soviet-authorities allowed the formation of full-fledged political parties that varied in their political agendas.Serhy Yekelchyk ''Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation'', Oxford University Press (2007), , page 187 The first democratic bloc that consisted of smaller parties was formed during the election. The "Democratic Bloc" included the People's Movement of Ukraine (''Rukh''), Helsinki Watch Committee of Ukraine, Green World Association, and other organizations. It managed to obtain 111 seats out of 442 in Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament). The democratic deputies formed the "Narodna Rada" group, which consisted of around 90 to 125 members and was the opposition to the conservative-communist "group of 239" in the parliament ("for the sovereign Soviet Ukraine"). Ihor Yukhnovskyi became the leader of the group. The considered lack of parliamentary seats for the "Democratic Bloc" became one of the causes of the October 1990 " Revolution on Granite", the first of Ukraine's large-scale radical protest campaigns of Ukraine centered on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (the other ones being the 2001 "Ukraine without Kuchma", the 2004 Orange Revolution, and the 2013–14 Euromaidan).Where does the key to political change lie in the post-Soviet space?
openDemocracy (23 August 2016)The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know
by Serhy Yekelchyk, Oxford University Press, 2015, (page 2)

During the next parliamentary election of 1994 the above-mentioned parties didn't cooperate as "Democratic Bloc" but rather went their separate ways. Eventually, by the end of the 2000s, the People's Movement of Ukraine became part of the Our Ukraine block. Helsinki Watch Committee of Ukraine ceased to exist. Its 1990s offspring, Ukrainian Republican Party merged with Ukrainian People's Party and became part of Our Ukraine. The Green World Association transformed itself into the Party of Greens of Ukraine, but that party hasn't won any seats in the Ukrainian Parliament since the 1998 parliamentary election.

After the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election