Kyrgyzstan completes voting in parliamentary elections

President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov

By Nurzhan Kasmalieva

BISHKEK: The parliamentary elections have ended in Kyrgyzstan with the victory of six political parties.

For the first time, 90 candidates were elected to the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan through a mixed electoral system with 54 of them according to a proportional system from political parties, and 36 others from single-mandate constituencies on a majority basis.

A total of 21 political parties and 286 candidates took part in the elections.

The candidates with the largest number of votes will enter parliament in single-mandate constituencies, and parties with at least 5 % of the vote will win in a single constituency.

According to data of the automatically reading ballot boxes, six parties have overcome 5 % barrier – Ata-Zhurt Kyrgyzstan (16.44 %), Ishenim (13.2 %), Yntymak (10.65 %), Alliance (8.07%), Butun Kyrgyzstan (6.58 %), Iyman Nuru (5.95 %) and can enter the Parliament.

Among the winners, there is the opposition Butun Kyrgyzstan party, though most of the opposition parties could not get enough votes. Nevertheless, several opposition deputies won in single-mandate constituencies.

Another feature of the elections was the protest potential in Bishkek and Chui oblast. In three single-mandate constituencies, people voted against all.

Head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Nurzhan Shaildabekova said that there will be re-elections in these constituencies.

The turnout in parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan reached 32.12%, according to data from the CEC.

The CEC said that the official results will be announced only following the manual counting of all ballots.

Right after the voting process ended, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov addressed the nation on the occasion of the completion of voting in the parliamentary elections.

In his address President Zhaparov said that the authorities made a main task to hold fair and legal parliamentary elections.

“I will not be mistaken if I say that we have fulfilled this task as a democratic state,” he said. “We can say with confidence that these elections were held at the will of our people, in accordance with the country’s Constitution and international norms.”

President Zhaparov stressed that now the three branches of power need to work together to ensure the development of Kyrgyzstan.

“I am sure we will be able to successfully work with the newly elected deputies of parliament and achieve great success,” he added.

Newly weds cast their ballots (Photo: Kabar)

Meanwhile, some political parties expressed dissatisfaction with the preliminary results of the voting.

The leaders of four parties – Ata Meken, Reforma, Social Democrats, Azattyk, Uluttar Birimdigi- issued a common statement.

They declared that they do not recognize the results of the parliamentary elections due to falsifications and machinations. Politicians demanded the immediate resignation of the cabinet and called for fair re-elections.

In this connection, President Zhaparov made another appeal to citizens and parties that do not recognize the results of the elections and offered them to recalculate ballots manually.

“I would like to appeal to the parties that are making a fuss, saying that the CEC server failed and the votes were stolen: no one will stop you from counting the ballots manually,” Zhaparov said, adding that if it turns out there has been falsification by the CEC, then all CEC members will be held accountable.

The CEC’s website had some disruptions after the end of voting in the elections. The data on the website disappeared and the site did not display the information. Later the site was updated with different data.

CEC chairwoman Shaildabekova explained it that at first the wrong program was uploaded to the site.

Marat Imankulov (Photo: Kabar)

Secretary of the Security Council, head of the parliamentary elections headquarters Marat Imankulov attributed the disorder of the CEC’s website that to hacker attacks from 20 countries.

Commenting this failure of the CEC’s website, head of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) observer mission, Chairman of the Executive Committee – Executive Secretary of the CIS Sergey Lebedev said that CIS observer mission does not have the ability to control technical failures.

However, the mission hoped that the authorities will sort it out and do everything necessary for a transparent vote count.

In general, the parliamentary elections were held in accordance with the laws of Kyrgyzstan, he added.