Kyrgyzstan is a dark-horse candidate in elections for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, but one of its advantages is the Manas air base, according to an analysis by Bloomberg:
The impoverished former Soviet state, which has no credit rating or international bonds, has been criticized by the U.S. and UN for corruption and a range of human rights abuses, including the abduction of girls for forced marriages.
Still, it has two cards to play in seeking a place in the UN’s most powerful group: a woman leader and air bases.
The land-locked country has Central Asia’s first female president and is unique in having both Russia and U.S. use military bases on its territory. The U.S. relies on the Manas Transit Center to support operations in Afghanistan, after Uzbekistan evicted U.S. military from its airfield in 2005....[President Roza] Otunbayeva “is certainly going to do her best to ensure the maximum number of Western votes for the only democracy in that part of the world with a valuable transit military base leased by the U.S,” said Lilit Gevorgyan, a London-based analyst at IHS Global Insight.
Well, and that's the only evidence presented that Manas will have any effect on the vote. Kyrgyzstan is a candidate for the de facto Asia seat on the council, and its primary competition is Pakistan. And there is much speculation in the South Asian press that the U.S. is marshaling support for Kyrgyzstan over Pakistan. From the Times of India:
Kyrgyzstan does not set the UN on fire, though they apparently have a large delegation working the diplomatic network in Turtle Bay. But this year, Pakistan is not on the global favourite list - hosting Osama bin Laden and its overt reluctance to give up terrorism as an instrument of state policy does not help matters for Islamabad. Yet Kyrgyzstan has refused to give up its candidature for Pakistan, and has promised to see this battle through to the bitter end. Surprised, many Pakistanis believe the responsibility for this could lie with the US.
Akram noted the US had yet to support Pakistan publicly, though Indian diplomats say that could change in the days ahead. US has a key base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, which is used for the war in Afghanistan, and is expanding actvities in the tiny Central Asian country.
And Pakistan's Dawn newspaper suggests that Pakistan ought to bribe Kyrgyzstan to avoid a humiliating setback:
Obviously, Kyrgyzstan cannot defeat Pakistan since it cannot secure a two-thirds majority of 128 votes in the General Assembly. But, if its candidature is, indeed, being propped up by the US, it is possible that Pakistan could be denied a two-thirds majority. In previous elections, if an impasse has not been overcome after several ballots, the compromise solution has been either to split the term between the competing candidates or to choose a third, mutually acceptable candidate from the region . Either scenario would be a major humiliation for Pakistan. The Pakistan government needs to exert all possible efforts — even at this eleventh hour — to avoid such an outcome.
The best solution would be to persuade Kyrgyzstan to step out of the contest. To this end, it would be worthwhile approaching the Kyrgyz leadership, including through the dispatch of a high-level envoy to work out an accommodation that offers appropriate incentives to Kyrgyzstan.
For her part, Otunbayeva suggests that accusations of skulduggery are just speculation: Kyrgyzstan, she says, was a candidate before Pakistan, and that now it has little chance of competing with the much bigger country.
The election takes place October 21.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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