POLITICAL AND PARTY ENVIRONMENT FRAGMENTATION AT A REGIONAL LEVEL IN THE LIGHT OF LOCAL ELECTIONS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Transitional processes in the political systems of post-socialist countries predetermined a range of correlations between the country democracy score and the party pluralism implementation. Party evolution in the contemporary Czech Republic at an all-national, i.e. parliamentary level caused the democratic shift of the country in the 1990s, amplifying the empiric local democracy model. The main electoral competition arises at the highest self-governmental level in 14 regions, particularly during elections of the Regional Assembly, the public administration body, and the President of the Region. According to the October 2014 elections results, the regional party system illustrates characteristics of a moderate multiparty nature, in which the right-centrists ANO 2011 and the left-centrists CSSD are the main rivals, with maximum four other parties entering the competition. The recent electoral environment is characterized by the increasing role of regional political organizations, representing their candidates in Regional Assemblies in more than half of the regions; moreover, regional social and political unions and independent candidates dominate in municipal elections. The regional political and party environment is characterized by moderate fragmentability. It does not bear any traces of the post-communist party evolution syndrome, e.g. Electoral Clientelism and Oligarchic Patrimonialism (W. Merkel); however, it illustrates an insignificant all-national/regional demarcation exempt from religious differences factors (V. Shweitser). According to the Euclidean distance formula, the central regions are characterized as the most typical, whereas East regions appear to be the most deviant. The party system proves to be of a bipolar character, with a right-centrist dominance in the East (post-socialist area) and a left-centrist majority in the South (pro-western area), another feature being a factual party equality in holding the Office of the President of the Region: six offices, held by ANO 2011, five offices held respectively by CSSD. A noticeable factor is a feature of the so-called current Party Modernism, connected with Euroscepticism, as illustrated by party leaders of ANO 2011, the Czech Pirate Party, the Freedom and Direct Democracy - Tomio Okamura. Traditionally, local political elite is composed of party leaders, including the President of the Region (more than 50 %).