Abstract

The current party system of Ukraine, defined its main features and trends with regard of parliamentary elections 2014 was investigated. The classification, which distinguish the parliamentary system was determined. It is established that the party system has undergone significant changes compared to previous years. Thus, according to classification Mayra Ukrainian party system evolved from a secondary party system to a system of small parties because the two largest parties have 47.5% of votes in parliament. Meyer’s Index fell by almost a factor of 2, indicating that the party system became more competitive, the process of forming a coalition will be longer, and the stability of the government will be lower than in previous years. The calculated effective indices of the number of parties suggested Laakso, Taagepera and Golosov also show that the party system became more fragmented. Based on the analyzed results of parliamentary elections for 1998­2014 years, it has found that increasing or decreasing the percentage threshold of 1%, not significantly affected by the number of parties represented in Parliament; none of the parties could not be present in every convocation; there is uncertainty in electoral preferences.