The politics of Ukraine take place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic and of a multi-party system. A Cabinet of Ministers exercises executive power (until 1996, jointly with the President). Legislative power is vested in the parliament (Verkhovna Rada – Ukrainian: Верховна Рада, lit. ’Supreme Council’). Taras Kuzio described Ukraine’s political system in 2009 as “weak, fractured, highly personal and ideologically vacuous while the judiciary and media fail to hold politicians to account”. Kuzio has categorised the Ukrainian state as “over-centralised” – both as a legacy of the Soviet system and caused by a fear of separatism. Corruption in Ukraine is rampant, and widely cited – at home and abroad – as a defining characteristic (and decisive handicap) of Ukrainian society, politics and government.

 

During Soviet rule of the territory of present-day Ukraine (c.  1917-1991), the political system featured a single-party socialist-republic framework characterized by the superior role of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), the sole-governing party then permitted by the constitution.

 

From 2014 changes in the administration on-the-ground in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk have complicated the de facto political situation associated with those areas.

 

In 2018 the Economist Intelligence Unit rated Ukraine a “hybrid regime”