Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary election yesterday got under way, with electors and smaller parties afraid that vote-buying would spoil a rare competitive election in former Soviet Central Asia.
Surrounded by authoritarian states with rubber-stamp legislatures, elections in mountainous Kyrgyzstan offer a colorful and sometimes unpredictable contrast.
Yet with the COVID-19 pandemic battering paltry incomes, many observers have warned that the stage was set for massive ballot fraud by well-resourced parties.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Aisuluu Alybayeva, a 34-year-old teacher in the capital, Bishkek, told reporters that she hoped the parties that made it into parliament would not be the same ones “buying people,” whose votes sometimes cost as little as US$25, according to reports.
The pandemic that saw new cases and deaths peak in July in Kyrgyzstan showed voters “how [officials] work,” Alybayeva said. “When the pandemic hit, our lawmakers took their [scheduled] holiday. I personally took offense.”
Of 16 parties competing, two were almost certain to take seats in the 120-member legislature.
The Birimdik (Unity) party is viewed as loyal to Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, and included the president’s brother and former parliamentary speaker Asylbek Jeenbekov among its candidates.
Its main rival, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan (“My Homeland Kyrgyzstan”), is associated with the powerful Matraimov family, whose figurehead Rayimbek Matraimov — a former customs service official — was the target of anti-corruption protests last year.
Both parties have spoken in favor of further integration with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, which has raised the status of hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia since Kyrgyzstan joined in 2015.
However, Birimdik chairman Marat Amankulov sparked indignation after comments emerged from last year of him saying that it was “time to return” to Moscow’s fold.
Rivals accused him of undervaluing Kyrgyz independence.
In a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Monday last week, Jeenbekov warned of “forces” that wanted to “drive a wedge into the [Kyrgyz-Russian] alliance” — an apparent reference to a pro-sovereignty rally held in opposition to Amankulov’s comments in Bishkek the day before.
On Friday, the state prosecutors’ office said that it was investigating a video widely distributed on messaging apps.
The video, which showed two male students from a top university secretly filmed in a hotel room, appeared to imply that opposition parties were supportive of homosexuality, which is deeply frowned upon in the conservative country.
The opposition parties targeted said this was an attempt to smear them ahead of the vote.
The office is also investigating accusations that one party bribed voters with sacks of coal, it said.
Revolutions unseating two authoritarian presidents in the space of five years were seen as the driving force behind a fresh constitution to curb authoritarian excess and contain political infighting in 2010.
Electoral laws dictate that no one party can take more than 65 seats in the 120-member legislature.
Presidents are limited to a single six-year term — a departure from the authoritarian trend seen in neighbors China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Jeenbekov would be hoping for a cooperative parliament as he plans for life after his term ends in 2023, knowing that his predecessor and former protege, former Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev, is languishing in jail.
Tensions between the pair grew following Jeenbekov’s electoral victory in 2017, peaking last year with a shootout at Atambayev’s residence between the former president’s armed supporters and state security forces trying to arrest him.
Atambayev was detained on charges of illegally releasing a crime boss from jail and jailed for 11 years in June.
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