ELECTION DAY, UKRAINE….
ELECTION DAY, UKRAINE….
Parliamentary elections in Ukraine returned a badly divided house. That result will not help a weak and frustrated government to cope with the country’s mounting and intractable economic problems. At stake in the March 29 balloting were 450 seats. Half are apportioned among the parties according to their shares of total votes, with a threshold of 4% for representation. The other half are filled by the winners in 225 single-mandate contests.
The Communists and their allies failed to win a majority but emerged as the dominant bloc. The Communists alone hold more seats than the next three largest parties combined. They swept the field in Crimea, where ethnic Russians dominate the voting lists, winning over two-thirds of the votes.
The outcome is bad news for President
