The party did participate in the October 2012 parliamentary elections. In March 2012 the parties popularity in opinion polls had reached a level far below above the election threshold (which was raised to 5% in November 2011) with about 1% of the votes predicted to go to the party but in May 2012 the prediction had increased from 1% to 3.8%. Experts believed the party was gaining potential voters from former supporters of Sergiy Tigipko and his Strong Ukraine. Famed Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko joined the party immediately after his retirement in July 2012; he took second place on the party list for the October 2012 parliamentary elections. During the campaign for this election the party was one of the biggest spenders. The party official reported it had spent US$7.6 million on the election campaign in multi-member constituencies. Political scientist Artem Bidenko estimated that the party had spent some US$150 million on the campaign. In June 2012 the party was advertising on 320 billboards in Kiev alone and on 900 across Ukraine. One of their election billboards claimed that “an average wage of 1,000 euros and a pension of 500 euros” was realistic for Ukraine (the monthly average wage was €300 at the time). In the election the party won 1.58% of the national votes and no constituencies (it had competed in 105 constituencies) and thus failed to win parliamentary representation. On 11 October 2012 the party had filed a lawsuit at Kiev's economic court against the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology with a demand that they retract their reports about the low rating of the party; on 29 November 2012 the party revoked this lawsuit.