Referendum on the independence of Ukraine

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The declaration of independence of August 24, 1991 was printed on the ballot papers for the referendum

On December 1, 1991, a referendum on independence was held in Ukraine . A clear majority of 92.3% of the voters voted for the country's independence. The presidential election in Ukraine took place on the same day .

prehistory

After the October Revolution, on December 24, 1918 jul. / January 6, 1919 greg. proclaimed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), which in 1922 was one of the four founding republics of the Soviet Union . Formally, Ukraine had extensive autonomy within the Soviet Union, but de facto it was the case that all important decisions affecting the country were made in a centralized manner in Moscow. The last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) , Mikhail Gorbachev , tried to renew and democratize the internally frozen and economically backward Soviet Union through reforms from above ( perestroika and glasnost ). On the other hand, resistance arose from the old leadership circles and in addition the hitherto suppressed aspirations for autonomy of the non-Russian peoples received a boost.

The collapse of the Soviet Union accelerated from the spring of 1990 with the declarations of independence of the three Baltic republics of Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia , which were initially not recognized by Moscow headquarters and responded with an economic blockade. The Soviet republics of Armenia , Georgia and Moldova also strove for independence. The Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR decided on July 16, 1990 to declare state sovereignty .

At Gorbachev's instigation, a new union treaty was negotiated with which the old Soviet Union was to be converted into a Union of Sovereign States . On August 19, 1991, one day before the planned signing of the new Union treaty, the so-called August coup took place in Moscow , in which a group of CPSU officials tried to depose Mikhail Gorbachev and take power. The attempted coup failed after a few days due to resistance from the population and the Union republics, but it accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union . Even the union republics, which originally wanted to agree to the new union treaty (including the Ukrainian SSR), turned away from the idea of ​​a confederation.

On August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada , proclaimed the Ukraine's declaration of independence by a large majority, under the direct impact of the coup , which also confirmed the basic principles of the “Declaration of Sovereignty of Ukraine 1990”. At the same time it was decided to hold a referendum on the question of independence.

At the time of the referendum, the Soviet Union was as good as dissolved, and almost all Soviet republics had already announced their independence. In Ukraine, almost all of the press reported positively about the country's independence. There was in fact no alternative to Ukraine's independence, which contributed massively to the clear election result.

referendum

The independence referendum was held on December 1, 1991. All residents of Ukraine of legal age were entitled to vote. The question asked to the voters was:

"Чи підтверджуєте Ви Акт проголошення незалежності України?"

"Do you support Ukraine's declaration of independence?"

- Question of the referendum of December 1, 1991

Two possible alternative answers had to be ticked on the ballot papers: "Так, підтверджую" ("Yes, I am for it"), and "Ні, не підтверджую" ("No, I am not for it"). The wording of the declaration of independence was printed on the ballot papers.

31,891,742 registered voters took part in the vote, corresponding to a turnout of 84.2 percent. 28,804,071, or 92.3 percent, voted 'yes'.

A majority of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine also voted for independence.

Results

Voices according to parts of the country
Ukraine referendum 1991.png
Yes votes
Ukr Referendum 1991 No.png
Vote no

The following table shows the results of the referendum by region.

area Voters Yes -votes No -votes Invalid votes
number electoral
participation 		number % number % number %
Vinnytsia Oblast 1,301,765 91.41 1,242,244 95.43 39,387 3.03 20.134 1.55
Volyn Oblast 710.989 93.20 684.834 96.32 16,299 2.29 9,856 1.39
Dnepropetrovsk Oblast 2,354,169 81.80 2,127,089 90.36 181,529 7.71 45,551 1.93
Donetsk Oblast 2,957,372 76.73 2,481,157 83.90 372.157 12.58 104.058 3.52
Zhytomyr Oblast 1,000,425 90.53 950.976 95.06 35,798 3.58 13.651 1.36
Zakarpattia Oblast 710.286 82.91 657.678 92.59 31,891 4.49 20,717 2.92
Zaporizhia Oblast 1,252,225 80.59 1,135,271 90.66 91,929 7.34 25.025 2.00
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast 975,655 95.73 960.281 98.42 10,028 1.03 5.346 0.55
Kiev 1,537,585 80.35 1,428,001 92.88 81,246 5.28 28,338 1.84
Kiev Oblast 1,259,129 88.02 1,202,773 95.52 36.086 2.87 20,270 1.61
Kirovohrad Oblast 813.833 88.07 764.053 93.88 35.613 4.38 14,167 1.74
Autonomous Republic of Crimea 1,036,190 67.50 561,498 54.19 437.505 42.22 37,187 3.59
Luhansk Oblast 1,682,344 80.65 1,410,894 83.86 225,589 13.41 45,861 2.73
Lviv Oblast (Lviv) 1,915,597 95.24 1,866,921 97.46 35.671 1.86 13.005 0.68
Mykolaiv Oblast 818,538 84.10 732.179 89.45 66,858 8.17 19,501 2.38
Odessa Oblast 1,412,228 75.01 1,205,755 85.38 163.831 11.60 42,642 3.02
Poltava Oblast 1,206,801 91.87 1,145,639 94.93 44,308 3.67 16,854 1.40
Rivne Oblast 757.151 92.99 726.575 95.96 19,369 2.56 11.207 1.48
Sevastopol 195,688 63.74 111,671 57.07 77.091 39.39 6,926 3.54
Sumy Oblast 948.278 88.41 878.198 92.61 46,479 4.90 23,601 2.49
Ternopil Oblast 836,667 97.10 825,526 98.67 6,565 0.78 4,576 0.55
Kharkiv Oblast 1,798,977 75.68 1,553,065 86.33 187.631 10.43 58,281 3.24
Kherson Oblast 753.843 83.40 679.451 90.13 54,248 7.20 20,144 2.67
Khmelnytskyi Oblast 1,059,021 93.44 1,019,813 96.30 27,743 2.62 11,465 1.08
Cherkasy Oblast 1,040,971 90.17 999603 96.03 28,703 2.76 12,665 1.22
Chernivtsi Oblast 586.377 87.68 544,022 92.78 24,226 4.13 18,129 3.09
Chernihiv Oblast 969.638 90.78 908.904 93.74 39,774 4.10 20,960 2.16
Ukraine as a whole 31,891,742 84.18 28,804,071 90.32 2,417,554 7.58 670.117 2.10

Further developments after the referendum

After the unequivocal result of the independence referendum, Ukraine was diplomatically recognized by 68 states as an independent state in 1991. Instead of the Union of Sovereign States projected by Gorbachev, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was founded on December 8, 1991 as a loose working association of some former Soviet republics. Ukraine initially participated, but largely withdrew from it in 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrew Wilson: Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s. Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-521-57457-0 , p. 128 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Про проведення всеукраїнського референдуму в питанні про проголошення незалежноскті Україана Урхона Україана; Постанова, Звернення від 11.10.1991 № 1660-XII. Retrieved May 2, 2014 (Ukrainian, decision of the Verkhovna Rada of October 11, 1991 to hold the referendum).
  3. ↑ a b До 15-ї річниці Всеукраїнського референдуму Документи з фондів ЦДАВО України. Retrieved May 2, 2014 (Ukrainian, document from the State Archives of Ukraine).
  4. ^ Daniel Treisman: The Return: Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev. Simon and Schuster (2011) p. 178 ( Google preview )
  5. ^ Ukrainian Independence. Worldwide News Ukraine, accessed May 3, 2014 .