falling 0.14% below the election threshold, denying them the right of representation and removing Moroz as a member of the Verkhovna Rada. Subsequent political activities The Socialist Party chose the party leader Oleksandr Moroz as their presidential candidate for the 2010 presidential election, whose first-round ballot was scheduled to be held on 17 January 2010. 268 out of 422 party congress delegates registered supported Moroz's nomination. During the election, Moroz received 0,38% of the votes. Public opinion polls did not rate the Socialist Party or its leader Moroz as they were undecided as to their participation in the presidential election. In 2005, Moroz received 5.8% of the national vote. An opinion polls conducted by FOM-Ukraine in April 2009 showed Moroz with less than 1% support, with most analysts not considering Moroz as a serious contender as he would not win sufficient number of votes in the first-round presidential ballot, scheduled for 17 January 2010. After leading his party for twenty years, Moroz was succeeded as party leader by Vasyl Tsushko in July 2010. However, he was again elected as party leader in August 2011. In April 2012, Petro Ustenko was elected as Moroz's successor as party leader. Moroz tried to return to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2012 parliamentary election, running as an independent candidate for single-member district number 93 (first-past-the-post winning a seat) located in Kyiv Oblast. Moroz was unsuccessful, finishing in third with 11.94% of the vote. In the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election, Moroz was a candidate for the Socialist Party of Oleksandr Moroz. Political views Since organising the left-leaning Socialist Party of Ukraine, his party ideology largely evolved from orthodox communism to social democracy. He himself is a left-wing social democrat, though he has used both Marxist and social democratic rhetoric. For his moderate ideals, he met strong opposition from the more conservative wing of his party, represented by the supporters of Nataliya Vitrenko. Vitrenko eventually left the Socialist Party, proclaimed the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, and branded Moroz as an "opportunist" and "traitor", helping Kuchma to fight the opposition of Ukraine, which included the Socialist Party. After the last radicals headed by Ivan Chyzh left the party and formed an organization called Spravedlyvist (Justness), Moroz was able to transform his party closer to the European social democratic model. Moroz and his party supported the political reform and Ukraine's transition towards a more European parliamentary democracy