PREREQUISITES AND FEATURES OF THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE AND THE BALTIC COUNTRIES: POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL ASPEKT (1990 – 2004)

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to study the process of power change as a result of parliamentary and presidential elections in Ukraine and the Baltic countries under the influence of the consequences of unpopular reforms in the social and economic sphere during the first decade of their independence. The research methodology is in the use of various tools to achieve the goal. It includes: historical and comparative comparison of election results in the studied countries to determine their political features in the transition period; dynamics, with the help of which the quantitative and qualitative political changes in these countries during the first decade of independence were considered; synchronous, which was used to analyze the results of elections in the studied countries in parallel, in the same period; political analysis, which contributed to a clear understanding of the party architecture in the parliaments and the peculiarities of the formation of the executive power in the specified countries. The scientific novelty is that for the first time in the scientific discourse, the results of the elections in Ukraine and the Baltic states in the first decade of independence are determined through the prism of support for right and center-right, as well as left and center-left parties after they carried out reforms in transit conditions. The Conclusions. In the study, it was determined that in the Ukrainian political model, according to which the president had the key right to form the government, politicians of the left segment, criticizing the actions of the head of state, in the conditions of transition from a planned to a market economy, received the majority of mandates, both according to the majority component, and later according to the lists of political parties. In Latvia and Estonia, electoral sympathies were the opposite of Ukrainian, because in these countries the voters were inclined to support right-wing and center-right politicians who, under parliamentary forms of government, formed governments that carried out more effectively the transition of their countries to the market. The Lithuanian experience of the change of power in the 1990s is special, because in each subsequent election the opposition won, which was more reminiscent of a kind of “electoral pendulum”.

Key words: center-left, center-right, party, elections, transit, president.