From the extreme right to Yushchenko

In 1998 two extreme right-wing Ukrainian parties, the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) and the State Independence of Ukraine formed an electoral alliance called "Less Words". The alliance did very bad in the 1998 parliamentary elections - it gained miserable 0.16 per cent of the popular vote.

Those elections were the final straw for the SIU and it was dissolved. The SNPU was unable to participate in the 2002 parliamentary elections but was reformed in 2004 and now is known under the name All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" (yes, the word "freedom" is conveniently put in the quotation marks) headed by Oleh Tyahnybok. In 2004 Tyahnybok supported the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko (the "democratic" hero of the "Orange revolution"). Later on Tyahnybok focused primarily on his "Freedom" party and is currently a 2010 presidential candidate (with no chance of doing the 2002 Le Pen thing).

Yet what about other people who represented the "Less Words" alliance? Most of them never tried to get elected again, especially those from the SIU part of the "Less Words" list. Most of the SNPU candidates stayed, however, with Tyahnybok.

Now it is really interesting that two candidates of the extreme right-wing alliance "Less Words" are authorised representatives of the 2010 presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko -

- Iryna Kalynets (Ukrainian: Ірина Онуфріївна Калинець) (number 4 in the "Less Words" list),
- Volodymyr Parubii (Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Парубій) (former leader of the SNPU and number 8 in the "Less Words" list).

Even more suprising is that another former SNPU member and number 11 in the "Less Words" list Andrii Parubii (Ukrainian: Андрій Володимирович Парубій) is a plenipotentiary representative of Yushchenko in the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Ukraine! There can be only person to represent a presidential candidate in the CEC and for Yushchenko it is a (former?) right-wing extremist Andrii Parubii. Well, he joined Yushchenko's party Our Ukraine approximately in 2005, but still, what a nice company!