Social-Democratic parties on the post Soviet space: Trends and prospects

Political and economical transformations in the Commonwealth of Independent States were followed by forming of the party system, which is considered as the condition  of democracy.  Nevertheless, evolution of political regimes on the post soviet space has lead to the appearance of so-called “façade democracies” and new authoritarian regimes.

Stability of democratic system is provided by the presence of three minimum important segments of political spectrum: liberal, central and left.

Social-democratic and socialists parties has played important role in the forming of social oriented market economy and democratic political system in West Europe. During democratic transit in Central and East Europe social-democratic parties were also successful and  became the important part of new political system.

As for the post soviet countries, forming of social democratic parties by the model of West and Central Europe was not possible according to a number of reasons.

Stability of democratic system is provided usually but the presence of three minimum important segments of political spectrum: liberal, central and left.

We analyze the process of forming and evolution of social-democratic parties in 8 post soviet countries: Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine.

According such criteria, as quantity of members, peculiarities of organizational structure, participating in election, contents of ideology, role in political life, we can sort out three periods of developing of the social-democratic parties. First period (1991-1995) can be described in the terms of fragmentation of left part of the political spectrum and of it socialist wing in particular. Second period (1995-2005) can be characterized by searching of ideology and electoral base. Third period  links with essential  changing of  the parties positions in some countries and increasing of their roles in political life. It supposes good results during parliamentary election and let us make conclusion about prospects  for the future .