Political Leaders Visit Counterparts in Ukraine

November 12, 2005

During November 12-17, IRI led a delegation of Kyrgyzstani political party leaders to Ukraine to learn the structure of Ukraine's political parties regional offices. The trip was the first stage in IRI's center-regional party building program, which will include intensive consultation with a Ukrainian expert on how to improve the work of Kyrgyzstan's political parties regional offices.

Highlights of the trip included:

• a seminar on setting up a regional party office;
• visits to the regional party offices in Cherkassy of Nasha Ukraina-People's Union bloc, the Social Democratic Party United, the Socialist Party, and the Rukh party; and
• visits in Kyiv to the main offices of the Fatherland Party, Nasha Ukraina, and the People's Democratic Party.

The Kyrgyzstani delegation was given advice tailored towards parties with limited financing. The trip provided Kyrgyzstani party functionaries responsible for setting up regional party offices a chance to see how Ukrainian political parties have managed the task. Ukraine served as a model for the Kyrgyzstanis. Similarities between the two countries include a constitutional reform process that made the country a parliamentary republic, something now being considered in the Kyrgyz Republic. In Ukraine, blocs and coalitions have been forming in advance of March parliamentary elections, a process that is just beginning in the Kyrgyz Republic. In Ukraine, political parties fill seats in parliament through a party list that is under discussion in the Kyrgyz Republic.

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