Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united)

[11] The head of the new party was Minister of Justice Vasyl Onopenko, while his deputies were Viktor Medvedchuk, Yuriy Zbitnyev and Mykhailo Hrechka.Medvedchuk had made a name for himself in the Soviet Union as the government-assigned lawyer of several dissidents, among them the poet Vasyl Stus, while Surkis was a football manager.[3] Another important business entity of the group was the Slavutych Industrial and Financial Concern, which, starting in 1991-92 was receiving credits from foreign banks for purchase of oil which was refining in Ukraine during next 4 to 5 years.[3] Following the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, a special state commission to review the activities of Slavutych was formed, but yielded no results.The newly-elected Leonid Kuchma was at first critical of Medvedchuk and Surkis, but soon after elections was able to find common ground, awarding both of them the Order of Merit in 1996.The leaders of the SDPU(o) denied any relations to the energy distribution business, and Medvedchuk particularly called it "child's talk" (Russian: «Это же детский лепет!»).[3][4] Soon after elections in April 1998, Onopenko stated that inclusion of Kravchuk and Yevhen Marchuk on the party list, as well as reliance on the Dynamo's ranking was a mistake.[18] Analysts stated that TV channels and other media controlled by the party, such as Inter, 1+1, and TET began a sharply anti-American and anti-NATO campaign in response to Yushchenko's pro-Western proposals.[18] In 2001, Ukrainian historian and politician Dmytro Chobit published a book, titled Narcissus, about Medvedchuk, claiming that he was connected to the Federal Security Service of Russia.Supporters of the Orange Revolution, on the other hand, have claimed that the party enjoyed privileged status under Kuchma and was closely associated with big business, organized crime, corruption, and government media.[4] During the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party was part of the Opposition Bloc "Ne Tak", and failed to clear the 3% minimum to get into the Verkhovna Rada, thus losing all of its seats.[24] The current leader is Yuriy Zahorodnyi, who was also a member of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life until its ban and dissolution amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine."[27][28] The party did not take part in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election nationwide proportional party-list system;[29] instead, one member of the party tried to win a seat in one of the 225 local single-member districts; in this district, situated in Brovary, the candidate got 340 votes (the winner 31,678 votes) and thus failed to win a seat in the Verkhovna Rada.