Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ukraine this week held a deeply
flawed election, in which the main opposition leader was jailed
and the biggest gains went to a party of neo-fascists, who
appear to have won 10 percent of the vote. For a country that
eight years ago staged an inspiring uprising to overturn a
stolen election, it’s hard to imagine a more depressing outcome.
The breakthrough by Svoboda, an extreme-right-wing party
from the nation’s Ukrainian-speaking west, is just another sign
that all is not well in this divided country. Before the Oct. 28
election, Ukraine was already being shut out by the European
Union over its democratic failures and pressured by Russia to
join a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan instead. Now
neo-fascists will take their seats in parliament.
