Election Wrap-up

Well, after many hours of waiting and lots of big talk, nothing really happened, which isn't such a bad thing.

As the election day proceeded, there were more unofficial reports of fraud from both sides - one district in the south had its entire vote eliminated when the ballot boxes arrived at the polling station pre-filled (opposition, Ak Jol, and foreign observers all agreed to just dump them).

As the day progressed, there was big talk from Atambaev and Nazarliev about joining forces and making a protest march on the Central Election Committee offices. Technically, they were already planning to have a victory celebration, and just announced that instead it would be a protest rally (as it obviously always had intended to be).

I went to the site, gorky park, and observed about 1 dozen bored police officers (mostly women) just sitting around. As time passed and it grew darker (gorky is not well lit), the making-out couples trailed off, and it became apparent that one small cluster (maybe 30 people) sitting in the dark might not be entirely social. About an hour after the march was supposed to start, someone came up and started speaking to the group. They huddled around him, then, rather casually, dispersed in several directions. Speaking ot one of them on the way out, the "agitation" was apparently cancelled.

My journalist friend at Opposition HQ said they were all pretty disheartened. But to be honest, this opposition hasn't been very impressive.

With gorky a bust, I went to the main city square, Ala-Too, but it was absolutely business as usual. Ever since the president installed new fountains, benches and gardens in teh square in early June, it's been a popular family spot every night, even until pretty late. Tonight, it was no different. Children eating icecream, young people holding hands, and old people chatting on the benches. Extremely chill.

I did hear some disturbing reports of voter fraud - it's not a surprise that the election was rigged - at all - but general concensus was that the president was savvy enough to do it all ahead of time and not in fron tof the international observers he brought in to confirm it.

Apparently not.

The OSCE will publish its official report of any violations it witnessed this afternoon, and I'm curious to see exactly how itwas graded. People here generally think Bakiev would winn a fair election, but that hasn't stopped rampant fraud from his supporters, which tends to inflate a realistic 70+% into the kind or ridiculous figures that were common in the Soviet era.


In one instance I heard of, an entire region shredded their tallys and just created new numbers when it was apparent that Atambaev actually won. If this had been reported, they would have all lost their jobs, so the OSCE observers were asked to leave so that the numbers could be "reconsidered."

Pretty blatant, but not directly Bakiev-induced. Indirectly, yes.

Well, it's all still a bit muddy, if quiet, so I'm off to spend the weekend at the Issyk Kul lake resort, and will post again when things clear up in a day or two.

thanks for paying attention to Kyrgyz Politics.

Somebody needs to.

Weber (on the lamb)