1991 Ukrainian presidential election

1991 Ukrainian presidential election

1 December 1991 1994  →
Turnout	84.18%
Nominee Leonid Kravchuk Viacheslav Chornovil Party Independent Rukh Popular vote 19,643,481 7,420,727 Percentage 61.59% 23.27%
Results by oblast
President before election Leonid Kravchuk (acting) Independent Elected President Leonid Kravchuk Independent

Presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991, ^[1] the first direct presidential elections in the country's history. Leonid Kravchuk, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and de facto acting president, ran as an independent candidate and was elected for a five-year term with 62% of the vote. ^[2]

An independence referendum held on the same day saw 92% of voters voting to secede from the Soviet Union. ^[2] All six presidential candidates supported independence and had campaigned for a "yes" vote in the referendum.

Results

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Leonid Kravchuk	Independent	19,643,481	61.59
	Viacheslav Chornovil	People's Movement of Ukraine	7,420,727	23.27
	Levko Lukianenko	Ukrainian Republican Party	1,432,556	4.49
	Volodymyr Hrynyov	Party of Democratic Revival of Ukraine	1,329,758	4.17
	Ihor Yukhnovskyi	Independent	554,719	1.74
	Leopold Taburyanskyi	People's Party of Ukraine	182,713	0.57
Against all and invalid votes			1,327,788	4.16
Total			31,891,742	100.00
Total votes			31,891,742	–
Registered voters/turnout			37,885,555	84.18
Source: Nohlen & Stöver [3]

By region

Region	Winner		Runner-up		Third
	Candidate	%	Candidate	%	Candidate	%
Cherkasy	Leonid Kravchuk	67.1	Viacheslav Chornovil	25.0	Levko Lukianenko	2.0
Chernihiv	Leonid Kravchuk	74.2	Viacheslav Chornovil	12.3	Levko Lukianenko	6.7
Chernivtsi	Leonid Kravchuk	43.6	Viacheslav Chornovil	42.7	Levko Lukianenko	4.4
Dnipropetrovsk	Leonid Kravchuk	69.7	Viacheslav Chornovil	18.2	Volodymyr Hrynyov	3.2
Donetsk	Leonid Kravchuk	71.5	Volodymyr Hrynyov	11.0	Viacheslav Chornovil	9.6
Ivano-Frankivsk	Viacheslav Chornovil	67.1	Leonid Kravchuk	13.7	Levko Lukianenko	11.8
Kharkiv	Leonid Kravchuk	60.9	Viacheslav Chornovil	19.7	Volodymyr Hrynyov	10.9
Kherson	Leonid Kravchuk	70.2	Viacheslav Chornovil	18.1	Volodymyr Hrynyov	3.3
Khmelnytskyi	Leonid Kravchuk	75.5	Viacheslav Chornovil	15.4	Levko Lukianenko	3.3
Kirovohrad	Leonid Kravchuk	74.8	Viacheslav Chornovil	15.6	Levko Lukianenko	3.5
Kyiv	Leonid Kravchuk	66.0	Viacheslav Chornovil	21.2	Levko Lukianenko	5.6
Luhansk	Leonid Kravchuk	76.2	Viacheslav Chornovil	9.9	Volodymyr Hrynyov	6.8
Lviv	Viacheslav Chornovil	75.9	Leonid Kravchuk	11.5	Levko Lukianenko	4.7
Mykolaiv	Leonid Kravchuk	72.3	Viacheslav Chornovil	15.1	Volodymyr Hrynyov	5.6
Odesa	Leonid Kravchuk	70.7	Viacheslav Chornovil	12.8	Volodymyr Hrynyov	8.4
Poltava	Leonid Kravchuk	75.1	Viacheslav Chornovil	13.6	Levko Lukianenko	4.2
Rivne	Leonid Kravchuk	53.1	Viacheslav Chornovil	25.7	Levko Lukianenko	13.4
Sumy	Leonid Kravchuk	72.4	Viacheslav Chornovil	14.7	Levko Lukianenko	3.8
Ternopil	Viacheslav Chornovil	57.5	Levko Lukianenko	19.6	Leonid Kravchuk	16.8
Transcarpathia	Leonid Kravchuk	58.0	Viacheslav Chornovil	27.6	Levko Lukianenko	5.0
Vinnytsia	Leonid Kravchuk	72.3	Viacheslav Chornovil	18.2	Levko Lukianenko	3.3
Volyn	Leonid Kravchuk	51.7	Viacheslav Chornovil	31.4	Levko Lukianenko	8.9
Zaporizhzhia	Leonid Kravchuk	74.7	Viacheslav Chornovil	13.0	Volodymyr Hrynyov	3.9
Zhytomyr	Leonid Kravchuk	77.6	Viacheslav Chornovil	14.0	Levko Lukianenko	3.3
Crimean ASSR	Leonid Kravchuk	56.6	Volodymyr Hrynyov	9.4	Viacheslav Chornovil	8.0
Kyiv City	Leonid Kravchuk	56.1	Viacheslav Chornovil	26.7	Levko Lukianenko	6.4
Sevastopol	Leonid Kravchuk	54.7	Viacheslav Chornovil	10.9	Volodymyr Hrynyov	8.4
Total	Leonid Kravchuk	61.6	Viacheslav Chornovil	23.3	Levko Lukianenko	4.5
Source: Electoral Geography

Analysis

Anti-communist opposition leader Vyacheslav Chornovil won the majority of the vote in three regions of historical Galicia. His worst results were in Russified Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, as well as in Crimea. According to Ukrainian publicist and political analyst Mykola Riabchuk, the result of the election was a clear sign that the majority of the population preferred to see the newly proclaimed independent state as a continuation of the old Soviet Ukraine, and tended to demonize the democratic opposition as "nationalists". The failure to make a clear break with the Soviet legacy resulted in Ukraine emerging as a "hybrid state", where old Soviet identities and institutions coexisted with modern national ones. ^[4]

References

1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1976 ISBN   9783832956097
2. Independence - over 90% vote yes in referendum; Kravchuk elected president of Ukraine, The Ukrainian Weekly , 8 December 1991
3. Nohlen & Stöver, p1993
4. Mykola Riabchuk (2015). "'Two Ukraines' Reconsidered: The End of Ukrainian Ambivalence?" (PDF). Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism . 15 (1). Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism: 143.