Union Of Leftists
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Union of Left Forces (; SLS) was a political party in Ukraine led by Vasyl Volha from its founding in 2007 to 2019.Four parties unite to participate in presidential election
,
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) ...
(14 September 2009)
The party was banned by court order on 17 June 2022. The party was never represented in Ukraine's national parliament.


History

At the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the Socialist Party of Ukraine experienced a decline in support. Afterwards, Vasyl Volha left the party and created the Union of Leftists.Short bio
Liga.net
The party was founded on 8 December 2007 and its goals were empower local communities, provide state support for poor regions, stop the privatization of strategic state enterprises and the sale of agricultural land, make Ukraine geopolitically neutral and make Russian the second state language.Ліві об'єдналися в нову партію "Союз лівих сил"
, NEWSru.ua (8 December 2007)
In November 2008, the party headquarters were the target of arson. According to the party, this was connected to an action against radical nationalism in Ukraine conducted by the party in Simferopol the day before where they burned
swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...
s and flags of some
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
parties. The party participated in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election as part of the Bloc of Left and Center-left Forces and supported Petro Symonenko as this bloc joint candidate for the post of
President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...
at the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election. The party did not participate in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, as well as the
2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Fourteen or 14 may refer to: * 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15 * one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014 Music * 14th (band), a British electronic music duo * ''14'' (David Garrett album), 2013 *''14'', an un ...
. In 2019, the party leader became The party failed to register its party list for the
2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 21 July 2019. Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October, the elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved parli ...
.Union of Left Forces political party biography
Chesno
Holdarb at the time was a host of Viktor Medvedchuk owned TV channel NewsOne and the . At the 7th Party Congress on 18 December 2021, a decision was made to change the name to the political party For a New Socialism. This name change was not officially re-registered. On 18 February 2022, in the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Holdarb appealed through the US and UK embassies to the leadership of these countries "to compensate for the damage caused to our economy due to the military panic inspired by them". Holdarb fled
Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
at the beginning of the full-scale
2022 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 ...
and publicly supported the war against Ukraine. On 20 March 2022, the party was one of several political parties suspended by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with Derzhava, Left Opposition, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Opposition Platform — For Life, Party of Shariy, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc. On 17 June 2022, the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned the party. The property of the party and all its branches were transferred to the state.The court banned the political party "Union of Left Forces" - the "Chesno" movement
(17 June 2022)
On 29 September 2022, the final appeal against the party's ban was dismissed by the
Supreme Court of Ukraine The Supreme Court of Ukraine () is the highest judicial body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction in Ukraine.The Supreme Court banned the "Union of Left Forces", which was headed by the former deputy Volha
Chesno (29 September 2022)


Ideology

The party is considered to be left-wing and consists of former members of the
Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU or KPU) is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 and claimed to be the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, which had been banned in 1991. In 2002 it held a "unifi ...
and Socialist Party of Ukraine. Union of Left Forces is a socialist party, although political observers note the highly left-wing populist character of it. The main proposal of the party is 'socialization' of the Ukrainian economy. The Union of Left Forces also opposes Ukrainian membership in NATO and instead advocates for neutrality. It is a staunch opponent of decommunization laws implemented by the Ukrainian government, which was used to prohibit and take down all symbols associated with the Soviet Union and communism. One of the party's proposals is also to recognize Russian language as the second official language of Ukraine. A unique proposal of the party is to create a "common security space" which would include both Russia and the European Union that Ukraine could be a part of. The party also advocates decentralization and believes that Ukraine should become a federalized country, where regions would be given extensive autonomy, especially in the matters of defining cultural policy - according to the party leader, this would allow to accommodate not only Russian-speaking Eastern regions, but also regions with their separate cultures such as
Carpathian Ruthenia Transcarpathia (, ) is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. From the Hungarian Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, conquest of the Carpathian Basin ...
, Polesia and
Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...
. The party also argues that Ukraine should implement the European Charter of regional and minority languages.


See also

* Union of Right Forces


References

{{Ukrainian political parties 2007 establishments in Ukraine 2022 disestablishments in Ukraine Banned political parties in Ukraine Banned socialist parties Defunct socialist parties in Ukraine Democratic socialist parties in Europe Political parties disestablished in 2022 Political parties established in 2007 Socialist Party of Ukraine breakaway groups