Kyrgyzstan: OSCE Rep Says Parliamentary Vote Represents "Backsliding"

Early results from Kyrgyzstan's December 16 parliamentary elections indicate the country may be destined for a one-party parliament, or at least a dominant majority for the pro-presidential faction, Ak Zhol. Although President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had framed the vote as a step towards ending political instability, observers blasted the balloting as fraudulent, adding that it delivered a further blow to Kyrgyzstan's embattled reputation as Central Asia's most democratic state.

"I am sure that the elections will be honest, transparent, and fair," Bakiyev said when casting his vote on election day, the president's press service reported. He stopped short of praising Ak Zhol by name, which he had done in a television broadcast a few days before, despite constitutional restrictions on presidential endorsements.

Ak Zhol's built-in advantage as the party of power led to overwhelming results. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Ak Zhol had captured 49 percent of the vote. The nearest competitor, opposition party Ata Meken, received 9 percent, while the 10 remaining parties fell under five percent each. Turnout was an estimated 72 percent.

Under Kyrgyzstan's new party list system, one of several constitutional changes adopted in a flawed referendum on October 21, voters select a party rather than individual candidates from their region. A party must gain the support of 5 percent of Kyrgyzstan's nearly 2.7 million voters to enter parliament.

A second threshold, widely criticized, mandates that parties must also receive one half of one percent of the electorate in each of seven regions and the two main cities. On November 19, the Central Election Commission (CEC) ruled that the same number of votes – about 13,500 – should be required in each region regardless of wide variations in population density. Ak Zhol has asked Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court to reverse that decision, with a ruling expected December 18.

Based on the overall tally, Ak Zhol would steamroll into parliament with 76 of the 90 available seats, with Ata Meken receiving the remaining 14. But if Ata Meken failed to make the half-percent threshold in some regions, as CEC officials indicated earlier in the day, the president's supporters would win every seat.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) released an unusually sharp evaluation of the election on December 17. Speaking at a news conference the same day, Kimmo Kiljunen, who led the team of 270 election-day observers, said the vote "failed to meet a number of OSCE commitments."

"Having led the past two OSCE election observation missions in Kyrgyzstan, I am personally disappointed that there is now a backsliding in the elections process," Kiljunen continued. He highlighted the tabulation of votes as especially prone to violations.

Fredrik Sjoberg, a political scientist and visiting research fellow at the OSCE Academy in Kyrgyzstan's capital, said it would be wrong to claim that the new system had led to a representative balance of political forces. "The disproportionality is just appalling," he said.

The attention of political analysts is focusing on the half-percent regional barrier, with speculation mounting as to whether the authorities would exert pressure on the Supreme Court to nullify or alter it, thereby potentially allowing Ata Meken into parliament.

"Having [a] one-party parliament ... is not in the interests of [the] president and his team, and there's a high possibility that there will be some sort of informal interference into the decision" said Shairbek Juraev of the International and Comparative Politics Department at the American University of Central Asia.

Opposition groups have warned that a fraudulent vote could extend Kyrgyzstan's spiral of political unrest, which began with the ouster of former president Askar Akayev in March 2005 for presiding over similarly problematic elections.

"Even under Askar Akayev, there was not such a level of falsification of elections in Kyrgyzstan," one of Ata Meken's leaders, Kubatbek Baibolov, told local news agency 24.kg on election day. "We will await the results of the elections and protest their results," he added.

The widespread condemnation from local and Western observers will serve as ammunition for the opposition in the coming battle. Many domestic monitoring groups and several parties complained that discrimination by government officials and media outlets, official harassment, and physical intimidation had skewed the campaign from the start. The CEC excluded several prominent members of opposition parties, and sometimes entire parties themselves, for various technical reasons.

Reports abounded of government officials pressuring their charges to vote for the presidential party. "We have a dean [and] a rector, and they told us to pick Ak Zhol," said Nurdin Kolbayev, a student at a state-run Bishkek university. "Some do, but I personally went for Ata Meken."

Monitors also highlighted the exclusion of voters from electoral lists. At Sverdlovsk District Court in the capital, Bishkek, the hallways were filled with people challenging their unregistered status. Some persevered despite a wait of two hours or more, while others walked away in disgust.

"I've lived here since '86," said one voter who was not on the list at his polling place. "I can't understand it."

Some of the opposition appeared to be gearing up for a round of demonstrations regardless of the Supreme Court ruling. Ata Meken's website announced a meeting in Osh on December 18 to denounce the election results.

The anger of apparently disenfranchised voters and opposition parties must be balanced against a public that appears to be suffering from a case of protest fatigue. In a recent, nationwide public opinion survey supported by the International Republican Institute, 53 percent of respondents listed disorder, instability, or revolution as among their biggest fears.

Juraev doubted that the opposition would be able to mount the "wide scale, big protests" needed to pressure Bakiyev. The next thing to look out for, he predicted, was an attempt by Bakiyev's supporters to once again amend the constitution, this time to extend the president's term or allow him to run for another one.

For Sjoberg, though, the "pockets of resistance" to the election results could yet coalesce into another mass street movement against the authorities. "Now it seems that we're back to square one. To what extent we'll find a way out of it which is peaceful is of course on everyone's mind," he said.