Alternative History

Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 21 July 2020. Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October, the elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved parliament on 21 May 2020, during his inauguration. The elections resulted in an outright majority, a novelty in Ukraine, for Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, which won 254 seats.

‹ 2015 2020 Ukrainian Snap Elections (Domus Iagiellonica) 2025 ›
2020 Ukrainian Snap Elections
All 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada
226 seats needed for a majority
21 July 2020
Turnout 49.24%
First party Second party Third party
Razumkov 1 Boiko Yurii Wiki Vadim Chuprina Yulia Tymoshenko
Leader Dmytro Razumkov Yuriy Boyko Yulia Tymoshenko
Party Servant of the People Opposition Platform — For Life Batkivshchyna Fatherland
Last election None None 21
Seats after 262 53 28
Percentage 58.22% 11.77% 6,22%
Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
Petro Porochenko au Conseil de l’Europe Strasbourg 26 juin 2014 04 Vakarchuk 24th brigade concert Oct 2022 06 Murayev Evgen (cropped)
Leader Petro Poroshenko Svyatoslav Vakarchuk Evgeny Murayev
Party European Solidarity Holos Voice Opposition Bloc
Last election 159 None None
Seats after 27 20 8
Percentage 6% 4.44% 1.77%
Ukrainian rada 2020
Prime Minister before election
Volodymyr Groysman
USH
Prime Minister after election
Oleksiy Honcharuk
Servant of the People

About 80 percent of the elected candidates were new to parliament; 83 deputies managed to get reelected from the previous parliament and 13 deputies from earlier convocations. All deputies from Servant of the People were

political newcomers. 61 percent of the new MPs had never before been engaged in politics.

Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October 2020, the 2020 Ukrainian parliamentary elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved parliament early on 21 May 2020 (a day after his inauguration), despite claims that he did not have the legal grounds to do this. After Zelenskyy issued the decree (calling early elections), a lawsuit was filed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which sought to declare the decree unconstitutional and therefore illegal. The court declared the decree to be legal on 20 June 2020. The official reason why Zelenskyy dissolved parliament was "a lack of a government coalition".

Following the 2015 parliamentary elections, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) party became the largest party, after securing 132 seats. On 21 November 2015, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People's Front, Self Reliance, Fatherland and the Radical Party all signed a coalition agreement. Arseniy Yatsenyuk became Prime Minister on 2 December 2015. The Radical Party left the coalition on 1 September 2016 in protest over a vote in parliament involving a change to the Ukrainian Constitution that would lead to decentralization. February 2017 saw the start of the fall of the Yatsenyuk cabinet after the economy minister Aivaras Abromavičius announced his resignation claiming the government did not have real commitment to fight corruption. On 17 and 18 February 2017, the Fatherland and Self Reliance parties left the coalition; meaning that the coalition became 5 deputies short of the 226 needed. On 14 April 2017, Volodymyr Groysman became the new Prime Minister and the Groysman government began with a new cabinet of ministers.

Due to the short period of time available to organize the 2020 parliamentary election, current Ukrainian public procurement laws were not followed and to bypass this, local election commissions worked under deferred payment.