The 1999 Ukrainian Presidential Election: Personalities, Ideology, Partisanship, and the Economy

Abstract

The 1999 Ukrainian presidential election took place during a period of extreme political turmoil. The excitement of democracy had waned, the economy spiraled ever downward, and charges of corruption among the administration seemed the harbinger of communist victory. Nevertheless, Ukrainian voters returned Leonid Kuchma to the helm. Thomas F. Klobucar, Arthur H. Miller, and Gwyn Erb investigate this curious result, using a model that combines economic evaluations, the candidates’ personalities, and ideology. Relatively well-developed partisanship is present in Ukraine and was a major influence on voters’ choice. Surprisingly, economic evaluations had little impact on the Ukrainian vote. Instead, party identification, ideology, and leadership trait assessments led Ukrainians to vote for the “democrat.”

Ethnocentrism in Russia and Ukraine

“…Economic Evaluations: Egotropic retrospective economic evaluations have been shown to be related to increased support for the communist party (Hesli, Reisinger, and Miller 1998). Klobucar, Miller and Erb (2002) found similar, but only partial, support for prospective sociotropic evaluations: pessimistic assessments were related to support for the Communist Party presidential candidate in 1999. Given the economic security that the Soviet Union provided, it is not surprising that struggling households would long for a return of the Communist Party.…”

“…While language, ethnicity and region are almost always included, attitudinal factors vary from model to model. Examples of variables in the multitude of vote-choice models are: sociotropic evaluations (Wilson and Birch 1999;Klobucar, Miller, and Erb 2002), egotropic evaluations (Hesli, Reisinger, and Miller 1998), aggregate-level regional characteristics (Birch 2000b), nationalist sentiment (Wilson and Birch 1999), partisanship (Klobucar, Miller, and Erb 2002), relations with Russia (Hesli, Reisinger, and Miller 1998;Klobucar, Miller, and Erb 2002), communism/democracy (Klobucar, Miller, and Erb 2002;Constant, Kahanec, and Zimmermann 2011) and preferences towards different economic systems (Constant, Kahanec, and Zimmermann 2011).…”

“…This is because high levels of government intervention is closely related to the Soviet regime which is strongly disliked by those who are more likely to vote for Yushchenko Party identification: Partisanship is measured by asking the respondent about which party he or she voted for in the 2002 Parliamentary elections. In contrast to how partisanship has often been operationalized in the Ukrainian literature, which has tended to focus on current party preferences (Miller et al 2000;Klobucar, Miller, and Erb 2002), directly asking about past party support allows the measure to capture continuity across elections.…”