Thirty years ago, on March 17, 1991, 80.16 percent of Ukraine’s citizens in a national referendum voted “yes” to sovereignty within a union of Soviet sovereign states, based on Ukraine’s July 16, 1990, Declaration of State Sovereignty. A surprising 70.5 percent of the voters were in favor of a renewed federation of Soviet socialist republics, as proposed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The vote result brought Ukraine one step closer to signing a union treaty with Moscow. Rukh, the Popular Movement of Ukraine, and other democratic forces, however, claimed victory on the republican plebiscite, and noted that this demonstration of support for Ukrainian sovereignty was yet another step on the long road to democracy and independence.
Leonid Kravchuk, chairman of the Ukrainian SSR Supreme Soviet, told national deputies during a plenary session of parliament: “Now we know that our people want a union, and we know what kind of union they want. Ukraine wants to be sovereign master on its own land. A huge task lies ahead for our Supreme Soviet. We must give the people what they want.”
Voter participation in the referendum was reported at 83.5 percent (approximately 31 million residents) of eligible voters.
Preliminary results showed that Ivano-Frankivsk (18.2 percent), Lviv (16.4 percent), Ternopil (19.3 percent) oblasts had the lowest support for the proposed union treaty, and those same regions also had low support for the sovereignty vote (52.1 percent in Ivano-Frankivsk, 30.1 percent in Lviv, and 35.2 percent in Ternopil). On average, Ukraine’s voting results showed a 10 percent higher vote for sovereignty than for a Gorbachev-led union. Those same three oblasts also expressed desires for a free and independent Ukraine by voting on a third question: “Do you want Ukraine to become an independent state, which independently decides its domestic and foreign policies, which guarantees equal rights to all of its citizens regardless of their national or religious allegiance?”
Notably, in Crimea, residents voted 87.6 percent for the union and 84.7 percent for a sovereign Ukraine. Also, surprisingly, Kyiv residents voted 44.6 percent for a union and 78.2 percent for sovereignty. Kyiv was the only capital city of the Soviet republics which took part in the referendum that didn’t support the union referendum.
Source: “Over 80 percent vote for Ukraine’s sovereignty, 70.5 percent support union,” by Marta Kolomayets, The Ukrainian Weekly, March 24, 1991.