1991 Ukrainian presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991,^[1] the first direct presidential elections in the country's history. Leonid Kravchuk, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and de facto acting president, ran as an independent candidate and was elected for a five-year term with 62% of the vote.^[2]

An independence referendum held on the same day saw 92% of voters voting to secede from the Soviet Union.^[2] All six presidential candidates supported independence and had campaigned for a "yes" vote in the referendum.

Anti-communist opposition leader Vyacheslav Chornovil won the majority of the vote in three regions of historical Galicia. His worst results were in Russified Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, as well as in Crimea. According to Ukrainian publicist and political analyst Mykola Riabchuk, the result of the election was a clear sign that the majority of the population preferred to see the newly proclaimed independent state as a continuation of the old Soviet Ukraine, and tended to demonize the democratic opposition as "nationalists". The failure to make a clear break with the Soviet legacy resulted in Ukraine emerging as a "hybrid state", where old Soviet identities and institutions coexisted with modern national ones.^[4]