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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS