Parliamentary elections are expected to take place in Ukraine to elect members of the

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada ( ; VR), officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameralism, unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 Deputy (legislator), deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovn ...

after the end of the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

. According to the Ukrainian electoral code, the electoral process should start within a month from the cancellation of the state of

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

that was introduced in 2022 following the Russian invasion. The previous parliamentary election in Ukraine was held on 21 July 2019.

Background

The previous parliamentary elections in 2019 were snap ones, called in July instead of the regular constitutionally-prescribed late October date. The first meeting of the elected deputies took place on 29 August 2019. According to Article 77 of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

, regular elections to the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament of Ukraine) take place on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of parliamentary powers. Thus, if not for the war, the regular parliamentary elections would have taken place on 29 October 2023. In 2021, there were rumors that President

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

would call for snap elections in 2021, but also that he could use a provision to "collide" parliament's term with the 2024 Ukrainian presidential election.

Postponement

Elections are not allowed under martial law in Ukraine. Article 10 of Ukraine's "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law", adopted in 2015, stipulates that the powers of the president, parliament, and

Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (), commonly referred to as the Government of Ukraine (), is the highest body of state Executive (government), executive power in Ukraine. As the Cabinet of Ministers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republi ...

cannot be terminated under martial law, while Article 19 bans presidential, parliamentary, and local elections; Article 19 of the previous version of the law adopted in 2000 included the same provision.

Martial law in Ukraine The legal basis for the introduction of martial law in Ukraine () is the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine "On the legal status of martial law" (No. 389-VIII from May 12, 2015) and presidential decrees about the introduction of martial la ...

has been in effect since 24 February 2022, in response to the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. According to Article 83 of the Constitution, if the five-year authority of the Verkhovna Rada expires while martial law is in effect, its authority is extended until the first meeting of the next convocation of the Verkhovna Rada elected after the end of martial law.Constitution of Ukraine
per

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website as accessed on 22 May 2023 Electoral rights are not listed in Article 64 of the Constitution among the rights and freedoms that cannot be withheld in the state of martial law. A survey conducted by the

Razumkov Centre Razumkov Centre (), or fully the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies named after Olexander Razumkov (), is a Ukrainian non-governmental public policy think tank. Overview The Razumkov Center carries out research in domestic, econ ...

in September 2023 showed that only 15% of those surveyed supported holding elections during wartime, while 64% were against. Similarly, a September 2023 survey conducted by

Rating A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of a metric (e.g. quality, quantity, a combination of both,...). Rating or rating system may also refer to: Business and economics * Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness ...

for the

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, 62% replied that considering the war, if a decision about the necessity of elections is to be made, the elections should begin to be held only after the war, even if this means waiting even longer han March 2025 A poll released by KIIS in November 2023 reported that 81% of Ukrainians did not want presidential or parliamentary elections until the war was over. On 22 June 2023, President Zelenskyy announced that the elections would not be held as scheduled in 2023 due to ongoing martial law, and would be held in 2024 only if martial law ended by then. On 17 August 2023, martial law was extended for a further 90 days until 15 November 2023, which means the election could not take place on 29 October 2023 as originally planned. In November 2023, all political parties represented in the

signed a memorandum in which they agreed to postpone holding elections until after martial law has ended. On 26 February 2025, after a previous failed vote on a similar resolution, the Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution reaffirming that elections should not be held during martial law, and also pledged to hold a presidential election upon the conclusion of the

. On 6 March 2025 opposition politicians

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician and Oligarchy, oligarch who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ukraine), Minister ...

and

Yulia Tymoshenko Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko ( Hrihyan born 27 November 1960) is a Ukrainian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2005, and again from 2007 until 2010; the first and only woman in Ukraine to hold that position. She has been ...

, after having confirmed that they had held discussions with

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

representatives, confirmed that they still opposed elections held during wartime.

Electoral system

On 1 January 2020 the latest revision of the electoral code of Ukraine took effect. It states that all deputies are elected on a party list in one nationwide constituency with a 5%

election threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various w ...

with

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979 * ''Open'' (Go ...

regional lists of candidates for deputies.Electoral Code becomes effective in Ukraine

Interfax-Ukraine Interfax-Ukraine () is a Ukrainian news agency. Founded in 1992, the company publishes in Ukrainian, Russian, English and German. The company owns a 50-seat press centre. The staff of the agency is 105 people (as of the end of February 2022) ...

(1 January 2020) The new election law abolishes the single-member constituency system used since the 2012 parliamentary election. Under the previous system, the 450 members of the

were elected by two methods; 225 by

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

in a nationwide constituency with a 5% threshold, and 225 in single-member constituencies by

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

. On 4 February 2020, the parliament approved in the first reading (with 236 votes) a presidential bill to reduce the number of parliamentary deputies from 450 to 300. To do so, the

Ukrainian Constitution The Constitution of Ukraine (, ) is the fundamental law of Ukraine. The constitution was adopted and ratified at the 5th session of the ''Verkhovna Rada'', the parliament of Ukraine, on 28 June 1996. The constitution was passed with 315 ayes o ...

needs to be altered, and this will require at least 300 parliamentary votes.The Verkhovna Rada has previously approved the reduction of the number of people's deputies to 300 and the transition to a proportional electoral system

(4 February 2020)

Parties

The table below lists parties currently represented in the

Former party

Suspended parties

was declared on 24 February 2022. On 15 March 2022, the Verkhovna Rada deprived opposition MP

Illia Kyva Illia Volodymyrovych Kyva (2 June 1977 – 6 December 2023) was a Ukrainian politician who was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) from August 2019 until March 2022, when he fled to Russia. Kyva worked as an official and ...

of his mandate. On 20 March 2022, the activities of several political parties were suspended by the

National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, ( NSDCU; , ''RNBOU'') or RNBO, is the coordinating state body of the executive power under the President of Ukraine on issues of national security and defense. It is a state agency tasked wi ...

for the period of martial law: * Derzhava *

Left Opposition The Left Opposition () was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed '' de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within th ...

* Nashi *

Opposition Bloc The Opposition Bloc (, ) was a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine that was founded in 2014 by the merger of six parties that did not endorse Euromaidan. Legally, the party was created by renaming the lesser-known party "Leading Force".

Opposition Platform — For Life The Opposition Platform – For Life (; , OPZZh) was a Russophilia, pro-Russian and Euroscepticism, Eurosceptic Political parties in Ukraine, political party in Ukraine banned after the 2022 Russian invasion. The party was the successor of Fo ...

Party of Shariy The Party of Shariy (; , PSh) is a banned political party in Ukraine founded by political blogger Anatoly Shariy. Its official proclaimed ideology is libertarianism.Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) is a banned, pro-Russian political party in Ukraine led by Nataliya Vitrenko. The party was represented in Ukraine's national parliament between 1998 and 2002. The party is considered neo-commu ...

Socialist Party of Ukraine The Socialist Party of Ukraine (, abbreviated SPU) was a social democratic and democratic socialist Political parties in Ukraine, political party in Ukraine. It was one of the oldest parties in Ukraine and was created by former members of the Sov ...

Socialists Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...

* Union of Left Forces *

Volodymyr Saldo Bloc The Volodymyr Saldo Bloc (, , abbr. БВС or BVS) was a minor regionalist political party in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine headed by Volodymyr Saldo. The party was founded in 2019 and won 5 seats in the Kherson Oblast Council in the 2020 local elec ...

Opinion polls

Notes

References

External links

Central Election Commission of Ukraine
{{Ukrainian elections Parliamentary elections in Ukraine

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Events affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine