It is mind-boggling that an unrepentant, twice-convicted violent felon, a man who had sought to steal a presidential election – and who advocated a violent crackdown on the men and women peacefully protesting against his electoral fraud – should be a candidate for any office, let alone the presidency of a country of nearly 50 million people. Yanukovych’s candidacy thus reveals much about the nature of the people who back him, and also about the fragility of Ukraine’s democracy.