Promises and Pitfalls of the ‘Year of Big Elections’: Civil Society and Civic Actors’ Attempts to Deliver Reforms in Ukraine Ukraine: Great Expectations

Ukraine is rightly considered to be a country with a vibrant civil society and numerous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) that push various agendas. However, the daunting task of bringing reforms to many domains inevitably raises the questions of prioritising, effectiveness, alliance-building, and competition. Presidential and parliamentary elections of 2019 led to significant restructuring within the Ukrainian political class. Only 19.6% of MPs kept their mandates in the new parliament. The executive branch also witnessed a massive arrival of actors with little previous experience in either politics or policymaking. The landslide transformations of 2019 offer new opportunities but also pose new challenges to both reforms and reform-minded civic actors. It is within these structural settings that the role of the civil society in Ukraine should be examined.