Unrest is brewing in the Central Asian state of over five million people, writes DANIEL MCLAUIGHLIN
KYRGYZSTAN’S MODERATE prime minister has claimed a landslide victory in a presidential election, but irregularities and protests from nationalist rivals are stoking fears of unrest in the ethnically troubled central Asian state.
Official results from Sunday’s ballot gave 63 per cent of votes to Almazbek Atambayev, a close ally of outgoing leader Roza Otunbayeva, who took office after a violent April 2010 uprising and championed reforms aimed at transferring many powers from president to parliament.
Mr Atambayev’s two main rivals – both of whom oppose moves to weaken the president’s office – took less than 15 per cent of votes. They immediately refused to recognise the results and threatened to bring their supporters on to the streets of the 5.5 million-strong state.
Such threats raised local and international concerns about stability in the south of the country, where the defeated candidates are popular and ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks clashed last spring in vicious communal riots that killed some 500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
“People said ‘No’ to a destabilisation of society. Sunday’s events will be the first step to genuine unity in the country,” Mr Atambayev said yesterday.
“I will work so that the problem of a split among the Kyrgyz people and the danger of the break-up of the state are history. From now on, there will be no revolutions.”
Of plans to make Kyrgyzstan the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia, potentially ending a post-soviet history of despotic rule, Mr Atambayev said his country “doesn’t need an authoritarian system”.
“We should decide every issue together . . . The strength of any president, of any politician, lies in having the trust of the people.”
Mr Atambayev’s rivals rejected conciliatory gestures, however, and cried foul.
“I won’t calm down. Voters are in place and you will hear their reaction soon,” said the third- placed Kamchibek Tashiyev, a former boxer and emergencies minister.
“The people must decide for themselves what authorities they want – fake ones or real ones . . . If the results of the elections are not cancelled, disturbances are unavoidable,” he added.
His fellow nationalist contender, second-placed Adakhan Madumarov, also refused to accept the results. “My demand is that they are declared invalid,” he said.
Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the election “did not live up to the democratic promise”.
“Our observers reported a number of cases of ballot-box stuffing, multiple and family voting, vote-buying and the transport of voters from polling station to polling station with the intention of multiple voting,” said Corien Jonker, the head of the OSCE’s monitoring mission.
Several protests, the biggest involving a few hundred people, took place yesterday in Jalalabad and Osh, where ethnic violence was most intense last year.
“Atambayev’s victory could trigger a wave of street protests, especially in the south – Madumarov’s and Tashiyev’s political power base,” said analyst Lilit Gevorgyan of IHS Global Insight.
“Atambayev needs real political statesmanship to find a compromise with the strong nationalistic opposition.”
Kyrgyzstan was for many years seen as the most stable state in Central Asia, until growing anger in the south at the corrupt rule of veteran leader Askar Akayev triggered a 2005 revolution that forced Mr Akayev to flee to Russia.
He was replaced by southerner Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose own venal practices resulted in him and his entourage being driven from power in riots last April. He escaped to Belarus but, in his wake, many supporters vented their anger at his defeat in brutal attacks on their Uzbek neighbours.
Mr Atambayev has support across the country and on both sides of its ethnic divide.
He is also seen as acceptable to Russia and the US, both of which are vying for influence in strategic central Asia and have military bases in Kyrgyzstan, which borders China and is near Afghanistan.
While a stable Kyrgyzstan helps Washington to pursue its war in Afghanistan, Moscow wants a secure central Asia to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into Russia and protect its southern flank from Islamist militants.
In a rare attack in neighbouring Kazakhstan, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday in the oil industry city of Atyrau.