Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Kyrgyzstan's president has won reelection with 76.4% of the vote, RIA Novosti reported quoting the Central Asian country's electoral authority, citing final results from Thursday's disputed election.
"More than 1.7 million voters, or 76.4%, cast their ballots for Kurmanbek Bakiyev," Central Election Commission member Toktogul Sultakayev told reporters.
Officials results gave opposition challenger Almazbek Atambayev 8% of the vote.
The opposition said the vote was illegitimate and threatened to start nationwide protests this week. Atambayev left for Moscow on Monday to discuss alleged violations in the Kyrgyz election, his campaign chief told reporters.
Bakiyev, 59, came to power in 2005 after leading street protests that forced his longtime predecessor into exile, but has come under pressure and opposition-led protests over failure to tackle economic problems and his increasingly authoritarian stance.
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors in Kyrgyzstan said the presidential vote failed to meet international standards, and cited cases of ballot box stuffing, inaccuracies in the voter lists, multiple voting, and other irregularities.
The OSCE also said Bakiyev used administrative resources to ensure his reelection, and that campaigning in the Central Asian state was uneven, with candidates having unequal access to the media.
Observers from former Soviet republics said no major violations had been registered.
"The Central Election Commission has concluded that violations reported during the vote did not influence the results in general," commission chairman Damir Lisovsky said.
Bakiyev has already been congratulated on reelection by the leaders of nearby ex-Soviet Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. No other congratulations have yet followed.
The ex-Soviet state hosts a US airbase that is central to US-led operations against Taliban militants in nearby Afghanistan. Russia also runs a base in the country and is in talks with Bishkek on opening a new base of a post-Soviet security bloc.
