An Aligning Election and the Ukrainian Political Community

Abstract

This article begins by relating the 2010 presidential election to preceding presidential elections in Ukraine. It demonstrates that this is the first time in Ukraine’s two decades of national independence that strong continuity has been present across successive elections in the territorially aggregated basis of support for the same leading candidate, or between such a candidate and a political mentor. From this perspective, the 2010 election is the country’s first aligning election. The article investigates the social and economic correlates of regional voting patterns in 2010, finding that identity-based variables based on section (macro-region) and language are the strongest predictors, although economics is also of some relevance. It goes on to compare the 2010 contest in this respect with the elections of 1994, 1999, and 2004, showing that identity politics lost in salience as of the late 1990s and then resurged. The reasons for this reversal have to do with the elite’s habit of relying on identity messages to compete for high office and the penetration of the Ukrainian political space by international actors, Russia in particular.