Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's repeat election, bringing the former Soviet republic a step closer to resolving its political crisis. Yanukovych has not exhausted all of his options, however. His campaign has said that his main appeal would be filed with the court only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results of the Dec. 26 vote. Preliminary results of the balloting showed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko winning by a decisive margin. The three-judge panel unanimously threw out what Yanukovych's team had called an "intermediate" appeal, which alleged mass fraud and had asked the court to invalidate voting in all of Ukraine's 225 electoral districts. The panel said the appeal had no basis. The appeal was a bid to overturn the commission's unanimous refusal last week to consider a similar complaint. That complaint had focused on claims that at least 4.8 million people — mainly the disabled and sick — were deprived of their right to vote by election reforms introduced after the first runoff.