31 October 2011
Kyrgyzstan's former prime minister, Almazbek Atambaev, is poised to become president after winning by a sizeable margin in the October 30 election.
There were doubts that Atambaev could clear the 50-percent hurdle needed to claim an outright victory and prevent the country from heading into a combative second round.
But in the end, he appeared to succeed handily, winning nearly 63 percent of the vote. Central Election Commission chairman Tuigunaly Abdraimov announced the results in a press conference in the capital, Bishkek, today.
"Atambaev Almazbek Sharshenovich got 1,119,076 votes, which is 62.8 percent [of all votes counted]," Abdraimov said. "This means that, according to preliminary results, we can consider him a winner of the elections."
The elections -- the first presidential vote since Kurmanbek Bakiev was toppled during massive public protests in April 2010 -- were marred by some procedural flaws.
Most notably, hundreds of registered voters -- including the son of the outgoing interim President Roza Otunbaeva -- complained their names had failed to turn up on voter rolls.
But election officials said the errors were not enough to substantially affect the outcome of the vote. And international monitors from both the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe today gave the election their approval, while acknowledging some flaws.
'Cautiously Optimistic'
Walburga Habsburg Douglas, the head of the OSCE observations mission, said the body was "cautiously optimistic" about the future of democracy in Kyrgyzstan, but said election officials must work to address issues of procedural flaws.
The vote, which saw a healthy 60-percent turnout and a broad field of 16 candidates, appears to prevent the race from advancing to a second round, a scenario that would have pitted Atambaev, a moderate from the country's north, against two nationalist candidates from the south.
Those candidates -- former parliament speaker Adakhan Madumarov and Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of the Ata-Jurt parliamentary faction -- were considered Atambaev's main competitors, but took just 14 percent of the vote apiece.
Neither man has conceded defeat, and both have threatened that dissatisfaction with the vote could lead to a fresh wave of public protests -- a deeply unsettling notion in a country that is still recovering from last year's violent demonstrations and deadly clashes in the south.
Madumarov on October 30 led a group of opposition candidates in declaring the results invalid even before polls had closed, saying many voters had been left off voter lists.
Tashiev, a trained boxer seen as maintaining close ties with disgraced ex-President Bakiev, echoed the complaint today, claiming as many as 1.2 million voters were deliberately struck from voter lists.
In the run-up to the vote, Tashiev warned that "millions" would take to the streets if they deemed the election unfair.
Election Watched Closely
A correspondent for RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service in the southern city of Jalal-Abad reports that groups of demonstrators have already gathered in the main square to protest the results and express their support for Tashiev and Madumarov.
The election was being watched closely by both Russia and the United States, who both maintain military bases in the mountainous Central Asian nation and are wary of a repeat of last year's violence.
Atambaev is considered more closely allied with Moscow than the other candidates, and is likely to bring his country into a number of trade and security pacts with Russia.
He has also vowed to preserve his country's parliamentary system of government, a standout in a region dominated by entrenched autocrats.
