Factors that Influence Repeated Participation in Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections: The Impact of the 1990 and 1994 Campaigns

This paper is the analysis of the repeated participation of the 1990 and 1994 elections candidates in the following 1998–2014 elections. The interest in the long-standing candidates is dictated by the need to better understand which type of political background and political strategy gravitate more to the commencement of a political career at the very beginning of democracy building in Ukraine. The paper hypothesizes that in 1990 having a Communist Nomenklatura background was the determining factor, whereas in 1994, unaffiliated candidates who originated from the „party of power” were the main contenders. The hypotheses are tested using the data on the background and electoral results of the candidates, who started in the 1990 and 1994 electoral campaigns (8,898 candidates in the EAST PaC database). In this study both successful and failed candidates are studied because they all acquire experience of political professional activity. It was found out that the Communist party officials and managers of the state enterprises, who had won in 1990, competed in the following electoral campaigns less often, while unaffiliated directors more often. The affiliation with the left-wing parties in 1994 predicts higher odds that a candidate will repeat his/her attempts to get a seat.¹