The Communist Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Комуністична партія України, Komunistychna Partiya Ukrayiny, KPU) is a Ukrainian political party founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine which was banned in 1991 (according to the party's statute). The party also has been a member of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union that was created in 1993 and united all communist parties of the dissolved Soviet Union. The party played a major role in the parliamentary politics of post-Soviet Ukraine from its founding, but since the April 2015 Ukrainian decommunization law, the Ministry of Justice has legally prohibited the Communist Party from participating in elections.
Communist parties have a long history in Ukraine. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the party's predecessor Communist Party of Ukraine was banned in 1991, reforming into Socialist Party of Ukraine and other smaller parties. After being revived in 1993, the Communist Party was represented in the Ukrainian parliament from 1994 until the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election which resulted in national representation for Communists in Ukraine ending for the first time since 1918. The Communist Party and its immediate predecessor emerged as the largest political force after each Ukrainian parliamentary election from 1990 until 2002 and until the aftermath of the Orange Revolution in 2004 the Communist Party was continuously the largest single party in the Ukrainian parliament.
In the aftermath of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have both filed charges against the party. The charges include supporting the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and "financing terrorism" (i.e. providing support to separatists in Donbass), both acts of treason against the Ukrainian state. In particular, regional party cells in Donetsk Oblast created so called Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic. In May 2015, laws that ban communist symbols came into effect in Ukraine. Because of these laws, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry stripped the party of its right to participate in elections on 24 July 2015 and it stated it was continuing the court actions (that started in July 2014) to end the registration of Ukraine's communist parties. On 16 December 2015, Kyiv District Administrative Court validated the claim of the Ministry of Justice in full, banning the activities of the party in Ukraine. On 28 December 2015, the party appealed, but on 25 January 2016, the Supreme Administrative Court denied the party in the consideration of the cassation. This resulted in the court's decision to ban the Communist Party not to come into force. However, the 2015 decommunization law contains a norm that allows the Ministry of Justice to prohibit the Communist Party from participating in elections. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine prohibited the candidacy of Petro Symonenko for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election due to the fact that the statute, name and symbolism of his party did not comply with the 2015 decommunization laws. Symonenko has led the Communist Party since 1993.
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