Politics of Ukraine

The politics of Ukraine take place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic and a multi-party system. A Cabinet of Ministers exercises executive power (jointly with the president until 1996). Legislative power is vested in Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada (Верховна Рада). As part of the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until 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 Ukrainian SSR's constitution. In 1996, the current constitution replaced the previous constitution that was introduced in 1978. The widely condemned Russian annexations of Crimea in 2014, and of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2022 have complicated the de facto political situation associated with those areas. Constitution of Ukraine Shortly after becoming independent in 1991, Ukraine named a parliamentary commission to prepare a new constitution, adopted a multi-party system, and adopted legislative guarantees of civil and political rights for national minorities. A new, democratic constitution was adopted on 28 June 1996, which mandates a pluralistic political system with protection of basic human rights and liberties, and a semi-presidential form of government. The Constitution was amended in December 2004 to ease the resolution of the 2004 presidential election crisis. The consociationalist agreement transformed the form of government in a semi-presidentialism in which the President of Ukraine had to cohabit with a powerful Prime Minister. The Constitutional Amendments took force between January and May 2006. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine in October 2010 overturned the 2004 amendments, considering them unconstitutional. The present valid Constitution of Ukraine is therefore the 1996 text.

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Related concepts (7)

Politics of Ukraine

Communist Party of Ukraine

The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU or KPU) is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, which had been banned in 1991. The party is a member of the Moscow-based Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union, an umbrella organisation for all communist parties of the former Soviet Union. The party has been led by Petro Symonenko since it was founded. Communist parties have a long history in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (also transliterated as Zelensky or Zelenskiy; born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former comedian and actor who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. Born to a Ukrainian Jewish family, Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Prior to his acting career, he obtained a degree in law from the Kyiv National Economic University.