Today is the day: July 21. Ukraine is electing a new parliament. The polling stations open at 8 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. local time.
As Ukrainians go to vote, here’s everything one should know about this election.
See also: Here’s everything we wrote about the 2019 parliamentary election
Who is Ukraine electing?
Ukraine will be electing a parliament of 424 lawmakers. Unlike the U.S. and U.K, Ukraine has a one-chamber legislature.
Ukraine’s parliament, or Verkhovna Rada (“The High Council” in Ukrainian), is supposed to seat 450 lawmakers. However, since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and occupied parts of eastern Ukraine through proxy militants, 26 election districts have been beyond the reach of the Ukrainian government and can’t elect representatives.
Why is there a snap election?
Parliamentary elections were originally scheduled to take place in October, when the current parliament’s five-year term runs out. Instead, they will take place nearly four months earlier.
When comedian-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelensky was sworn in as president of Ukraine on May 20, he ordered the parliament to dissolve and set the date for snap election two months later.
The parliament, however, has continued working: the law allows it to work through the snap elections, until the new parliament replaces it. But with the start of the campaign, many lawmakers have stopped showing up for sessions and little work has been done.
Are there local races or a national vote?
There are both.
Roughly half of the parliament, or 225 people, are elected in a general vote, through party lists. Parties that gain more than 5 percent of the general vote will make it to the parliament and receive a number of seats proportional to their result.
The rest of the lawmakers will be elected in 199 single-member districts.
This means that, at the polling stations on July 21, Ukrainians will be making two choices: voting for a party and, separately, for their local representative. Candidates in the local races can represent parties or run independently. The candidate to receive the most votes in a given district will become a lawmaker.
Read also: Euro-Optimists struggle for second terms in parliament
This system has been frequently criticized for giving way to corruption: candidates in single-member districts often bribe the voters with gifts to get their support at the ballot box. But the system also means that it is difficult to predict what the future parliament will look like.
A new electoral law was finally passed on July 11. It will eliminate single-member districts and ensure that all lawmakers will be elected through a proportional-representation system with open party lists. However, the law will only come into force in 2023. That means that both the 2019 parliamentary election and the next one will take place under the current system.
Who is running?
There are 22 parties registered for the general vote. Separately, 3,085 candidates are running in 199 single-member districts.
Read also: Top 10 hottest races among 199 districts
Among the parties, five are likely to get above 5 percent and make it into the parliament. They are:
Servant of the People, the party founded by Zelensky. It’s the unchallenged leader of the race. It got 49.5-percent support in the last poll, published on July 18.
Opposition Platform – For Life, a pro-Russian party founded by people with connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. It polls at 10.5 percent and should not be confused with a similar party, the Opposition Bloc, which polls at 3.1 percent and is less likely to win seats.
European Solidarity, the rebranded party of ex-President Petro Poroshenko, who lost his re-election bid to Zelensky in April. It is campaigning on the promise to take Ukraine to NATO and the European Union. It polls at 7.7 percent.
Batkivshchyna, the party of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who came third in the 2019 presidential election. This is the oldest of the leading parties: it recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Tymoshenko is campaigning on the promise to lower the prices of utility services — mainly gas prices, which are a heavy burden for many Ukrainians. Her party polls at 6.9 percent.
Golos (Voice), a newborn liberal party founded by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a Ukrainian rock star. It polled at 5.9 percent in the last pre-election survey, although earlier polls placed it higher.
Who are other parties in the race?
Several parties poll under 5 percent and have slim chances of making it to the Verkhovna Rada. They are:
Strength and Honor, a party led by Ihor Smeshko, ex-chief of the SBU state security service. Smeshko, who left SBU in 2005, entered politics only in 2019. He ran for president and won 6 percent of the vote to take sixth place. Now his party polls at 3.8 percent.
Opposition Bloc, a pro-Russian party similar to Opposition Platform. Opposition Bloc was formed by the former members of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in 2014, when Yanukovych fled Ukraine. It polls at 3.1 percent. It has 39 seats in the current parliament, having come third in the 2014 election.
The Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, a populist party that held 21 seats in the current parliament, polls at 2.3 percent.
Svoboda, Ukraine’s best known nationalist party, polls at 2.2 percent.
Shariy’s Party, the party of controversial yet popular political blogger Anatoly Shariy, who has lived in western Europe since 2012 and is wanted in Ukraine. Shariy himself was banned from the race, but his party is still running.
Ukrainian Strategy, a new party launched by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, polls at 1.7 percent.
Civic Position, a liberal party led by ex-Defense Minister Anatoly Grytsenko, polls at 1.4 percent.
The Movement of the New Forces, the party of Mikheil Saakashvili, ex-president of Georgia, polls at 0.8 percent. Two days before the election, Saakashvili called upon his supporters to vote for Servant of the People instead of his own party because of its low results in the polls.
Samopomich, a party that has 25 seats in the current parliament, is unlikely to return to the Rada. It polls at just 0.5 percent.
Other parties poll even lower and are highly unlikely to make it to the parliament.
Why is this race so important?
In April, Zelensky won the presidency in a landslide victory. Nearly 75 percent of voters cast their ballots for him in the second round of the election. However, unlike the other leading presidential candidates, Zelensky had neither a meaningful political party nor allies in the Verkhovna Rada. Zelensky was a newcomer to politics and Servant of the People had just been founded.
Unsurprisingly, the Verkhovna Rada has largely been ignoring Zelensky and his political plans as president. That all changes with the 2019 parliamentary election.
Zelensky’s Servant of the People party is slated for a major victory. It could even possibly win more than half of the seats in parliament. That would mean that the party would not need to form a coalition government to rule, and Zelensky would have nearly uninhibited power to pass the legislation he wants.
That is a double-edged sword. Zelensky would be able to pass reforms that, under other circumstances, might get mired in parliamentary horse-trading. At the same time, he would also be able to do that with more controversial legislation, such as a proposed lustration law banning an enormous group of top officials and lawmakers who served in 2014-2019 from holding public office. In July 12, the ambassadors of the Group of Seven advanced economies slammed this proposal as incompatible with democracy.
However, most likely, Servant of the People will not take a parliamentary majority and will have to form a ruling coalition. In this case, the other parties that do make it into parliament will be particularly important. The most natural partner for Servant of the People is likely Vakarchuk’s Voice, which is also a new, young and anti-establishment party. Should Voice not make it into the Rada — or should the two parties’ combined tallies not be enough to form a coalition — Servant of the People will face greater difficulties finding coalition partners in a parliament where the other parties represent establishment and pro-Russian forces.
