Ukraine’s Presidential Elections: Seven Held, Five Went to a Runoff. 1991 to 2019

Independent Ukraine held presidential elections seven times between 1991 and 2019. In five of them, no one won a majority in the first round, and the top two candidates went to a runoff. In 2004, the Supreme Court quashed the Central Election Commission’s decision confirming the runoff results, and a rerun vote was held. No presidential election has been held since martial law was declared on February 24, 2022 (as of September 2026).

This article sets out the dates and results of the seven elections using figures published by the Central Election Commission (ЦВК), and examines the constitutional provisions on the term of office and the “maximum of two consecutive terms” rule, the two early elections, and the course of the 2004 rerun, from the text of the laws and court rulings themselves. It does not evaluate candidates or policies. Elections to parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) are covered in Verkhovna Rada elections, 1990–2019, and presidential powers in our article on the president, the Verkhovna Rada, and the Cabinet.

Timeline of the Seven Presidential Elections

Voting date	Type	Vote share (top two)	Voters who cast ballots	Turnout
December 1, 1991	First election	Kravchuk 61.59%, Chornovil 23.27% (decided in one round)	—	—
June 26, 1994	Early election (first round)	Kravchuk 37.7%, Kuchma 31.3%*	—	—
July 10, 1994	Runoff	Kuchma 52.14%, Kravchuk 45.1%*	—	—
October 31, 1999	Regular (first round)	Kuchma 36.49%, Symonenko 22.24%	26,305,198	70.15%
November 14, 1999	Runoff	Kuchma 56.25%, Symonenko 37.80%	28,212,484	74.87%
October 31, 2004	Regular (first round)	Yushchenko 39.87%, Yanukovych 39.32%	27,897,559	—
November 21, 2004	Runoff (the Supreme Court later quashed the decision confirming the results)	—	—	—
December 26, 2004	Rerun of the runoff	Yushchenko 51.99%, Yanukovych 44.20%	29,068,971	—
January 17, 2010	Regular (first round)	Yanukovych 35.32%, Tymoshenko 25.05%	24,588,268	66.51%
February 7, 2010	Runoff	Yanukovych 48.95%, Tymoshenko 45.47%	25,493,529	68.8%
May 25, 2014	Early election	Poroshenko 54.70%, Tymoshenko 12.81% (decided in one round)	18,019,504	59.88%**
March 31, 2019	Regular (first round)	Zelensky 30.24%, Poroshenko 15.95%	18,893,864	62.88%
April 21, 2019	Runoff	Zelensky 73.22%, Poroshenko 24.45%	18,491,837	61.42%

Of the seven elections, only 1991 and 2014 were decided in the first round. 1994, 1999, 2004, 2010, and 2019 went to a runoff.

A Five-Year Term, and No More Than Two Consecutive Terms for the Same Person

How the president is elected and the length of the term are set out in Article 103 of the 1996 Constitution. The following is taken from the currently effective text.

The President of Ukraine is elected by the citizens of Ukraine on the basis of universal, equal, and direct suffrage, by secret ballot, for a term of five years.

Constitution of Ukraine, Article 103(1) (Verkhovna Rada legal database, version as of January 1, 2020; translated from the Ukrainian original)

The same person may not be President of Ukraine for more than two terms in a row.

Same, Article 103(3) (translated from the Ukrainian original)

The regular election of the President of Ukraine is held on the last Sunday of March of the fifth year of the President’s term of office. If the President’s term of office is terminated early, the election of the President of Ukraine is held within ninety days from the day the term of office is terminated.

Same, Article 103(5) (as worded following the 2011 law No. 2952-VI and the 2014 law No. 742-VII; translated from the Ukrainian original)

As adopted in 1996, Article 103 set the regular election for “the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of the term.” The first-round votes in 1999 and 2004 were both held on October 31. The 2010 election was held on January 17, and the 2011 constitutional amendment changed the date to “the last Sunday of March.” The course of that amendment is covered in our article on the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.

From When Is “Two Consecutive Terms” Counted?

Whether President Kuchma, elected in 1994 and 1999, could also run in 2004 was contested before the Constitutional Court. Its ruling No. 22-rp/2003 of December 25, 2003, held that Article 103(3) applies only to people elected after the 1996 Constitution took effect, and that a person first elected under this Constitution in 1999 could run in the regular election of 2004. In fact, Kuchma’s name was not among the 24 candidates in the October 31, 2004 election (per the Central Election Commission’s announcement).

Winning a Runoff Without a Majority

As promulgated, the 1991 Law on the Election of the President (No. 1297-XII of July 5, 1991) provided in Article 17 that “a candidate who receives more than half the votes of the voters who took part in the election is deemed elected,” and in Article 18 that if no one is elected, a runoff is held between the top two candidates, in which the candidate who receives more votes than the other is deemed elected. This mechanism was carried over into the 1999 law (No. 474-XIV) and the 2019 Electoral Code (No. 396-IX).

As a result, the winner of a runoff can receive less than 50% of the vote. In the runoff on February 7, 2010, Yanukovych received 48.95% of those who voted, but was elected because it exceeded Tymoshenko’s 45.47%. According to the Central Election Commission’s announcement, 4.36% was cast for “none of the candidates” on that occasion.

Two Early Elections: 1994 and 2014

Of the seven elections, two were held before the end of a term.

• 1994: The Verkhovna Rada, by the law of September 24, 1993, No. 3470-XII, “On Early Elections of the Verkhovna Rada and the President,” set the parliamentary election for March 27, 1994, and the presidential election for June 26. This was partway through the five-year term of the president elected in 1991.
• 2014: The Verkhovna Rada, by resolution No. 757-VII of February 22, 2014, found that President Yanukovych had “withdrawn from his duties in a manner inconsistent with the Constitution” and, under Article 85(1)(7) of the Constitution, set an early presidential election for May 25.

The Constitutional Court has also ruled on the term of a president elected in an early election. Its decision No. 5-rp/2014 of May 15, 2014, interpreted Article 103(1) and (5) as meaning that “the President is elected for a five-year term in an early election, just as in a regular one.” The next regular election after the 2014 election was held on March 31, 2019, the last Sunday of March in the fifth year.

2004: The Runoff Rerun

The 2004 election involved three rounds of voting: the first round (October 31), the runoff (November 21), and the rerun of the runoff (December 26). These are set out below in chronological order.

Date	Event	Document
October 31, 2004	First-round vote. Yushchenko 39.87%, Yanukovych 39.32%; the top two go to a runoff	Central Election Commission announcement (Resolution No. 1166, November 10)
November 21, 2004	Runoff	—
November 24, 2004	The Central Election Commission confirms the November 21 results and Yanukovych’s election	Commission resolutions No. 1264 and No. 1265
December 3, 2004	The Supreme Court finds the Commission’s confirmation of the results “unlawful,” quashes the two resolutions, and orders the runoff to be rerun	Ruling of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court
December 4, 2004	The Central Election Commission sets the rerun vote for December 26	Commission Resolution No. 1273
December 8, 2004	The Verkhovna Rada passes a law setting out how the election law applies to the rerun vote	Law No. 2221-IV
December 26, 2004	Rerun vote. Yushchenko 51.99%, Yanukovych 44.20%	Commission announcement (Resolution No. 15, January 10, 2005)
January 10, 2005	The Central Election Commission confirms Yushchenko’s election	Commission Resolution No. 14

What Did the Supreme Court Decide, and What Did It Reject?

The suit was brought by representatives of candidate Yushchenko. In addition to quashing the Central Election Commission’s resolutions, the suit sought to have the results of the November 21 vote itself declared invalid, and even to have the candidate with the most votes on October 31 declared the winner. The operative part of the ruling reads as follows.

To recognize as unlawful the actions of the Central Election Commission in establishing the results of the repeat vote in the election of the President of Ukraine and in drawing up the protocol on the results of the repeat vote in the election of the President of Ukraine of November 24, 2004.

Ruling of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine (December 3, 2004; translated from the Ukrainian original)

The ruling quashed Commission resolutions No. 1264 and No. 1265, ordered the Commission to rerun the runoff within the statutory period counted from December 5, and concluded by “rejecting the remaining claims.” On the request to declare Yushchenko the winner based on the October 31 results, the reasoning states that this could not be done because no one received more than half the votes of those who voted in the first round. In other words, the Supreme Court did not decide a winner but ordered the vote to be rerun. The reasoning states that there had been violations of the voting procedure contrary to electoral principles, and that the voters’ true will could not be reliably established.

Where the Figures Differ Between Sources

Even for the same election, the figures differ slightly depending on which source is consulted. The tables in this article give priority to the figures in the Central Election Commission’s announcements and protocols.

• October 31, 2004: The Commission’s website election information system shows 28,035,184 voters, Yushchenko 39.90%, Yanukovych 39.26%, while the Commission’s announcement (Resolution No. 1166) gives 27,897,559, 39.87%, and 39.32%. The system’s screen carries a note that these are “preliminary figures that cannot be used as an official document.”
• July 10, 1994: Kuchma’s vote share is 52.14% (14,017,684 votes) on the Commission’s website (a comparison table for the 1999 election), and 52.1% according to IEU. This article was unable to confirm the 1994 first-round figures or Kravchuk’s runoff figure against a Commission publication, and gives the IEU figures instead.
• Turnout: within the scope of this article, the Commission announced a percentage figure directly only for February 7, 2010 (68.8%). The other turnout figures in the tables are calculated from the numbers of people announced.

2014: Areas Where No Voting Took Place

In the election of May 25, 2014, 34,214,652 voters were on the rolls, but only 30,095,028 were on the rolls of polling stations where voting actually took place (per the Central Election Commission’s announcement). No voting took place in Russian-occupied Crimea (the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol) or in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (in the Commission’s election information system, the constituency-by-constituency table shows zero polling stations for these constituencies). The 2014 turnout figure in the table is the share relative to the rolls of polling stations where voting took place.

The Legal Basis for Why No Election Was Held in 2024

Under Article 103(5), the next regular election after the one in 2019 should have fallen on March 31, 2024, the last Sunday of March in the fifth year of the term. The legal basis for why it was not held is the combination of the following provisions.

• Article 19(1) of the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law (No. 389-VIII of May 12, 2015): during martial law, it is prohibited to hold “elections of the President of Ukraine, as well as elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and local government councils.”
• Article 20(1) of the Electoral Code (No. 396-IX): once martial law is declared, the procedure for a nationwide election is discontinued as of the date the presidential decree takes effect, and after martial law ends or is lifted, the procedure starts over from the beginning. The body responsible for calling the election does so within one month after martial law ends.
• Article 108(1) of the Constitution: “The President shall exercise his or her powers until the newly elected President takes office.”

Martial law has been continually extended by presidential decree since February 24, 2022, and Decree No. 596/2026 of July 13, 2026 (approved by Law No. 4928-IX of July 14, 2026) extended it by 90 days from August 2, 2026. The debate over how to read these provisions, and the statement the Verkhovna Rada issued in February 2025, are covered in our article on the president, the Verkhovna Rada, and the Cabinet.