Yurt City

Statement of the Forum of Political Forces of Kyrgyzstan

The elections underway in Kyrgyzstan are not being held in a transparent, fair or honest way.

Mass use of the administrative resources and cash for benefits of pro-government candidates is beyond all expectations. Courts and CEC acting on orders of the White House deregistered some candidates during the campaign base don minor and fabricated grounds. The rallies gathering tens of thousands of voters followed immediately.

Voter bribery, provision of free alcohol, especially t men during the election day and the day prior to that, mass participation in campaigning of government employees supporting the pro-government candidates, pressure on, and intimidation of, doctors, teachers, employees of all state organizations and institutions, open pressure on the university students threatening to expel them and persecute in an administrative way, and last but not the least, informational blockade imposed on the people regarding the results of election and reaction to it throughout the country – these all are the results of the first round of the election.

The White House and pro-government parties are celebrating a Pyrrhic victory today. In reality the first round of elections uncovered the lack of realistic prospects and a deadlock of the political future of the country under Akayev’s regime.

Throughout the country – in Nooken, Suzak, Aravan, Bazarkorgon, Karakulja, Karasu, Tyup, Ton, Kochkor, Nakaiata districts, in Naryn, Karakol, and Bishkek- – people have hit the streets to protest against the hypocrisy, deceitfulness and inaction of the current authorities.

The elections turned into a procedure of manipulations and falsifications throughout the country, the real farce! Authorities are rushing to pack the Parliament during the second round with close relatives, needed people, and act even more shamelessly and rudely trying to sue all means necessary to “get” the right people into the Family’ and Oligarchs’ Parliament.

The epicenter of protest became Jalalabat oblast. Thousand of people have been participating the infinite peaceful rally in front of the building of oblast state administration for five days already. They are constantly joined by new groups of people. Don’t’ believe deceitful statements of capital and local officials who claim that the rally participants are out of order, crush the furniture and create debauchery. It is the lack of any trust in the Electoral Commissions, judges, and authorities that made people state their political demands of an immediate resignation of the Government and the President.

Ignoring the calls of the people in Jalalabat for a meeting with the rallying voters, the President and local authorities are conversely trying to put pressure on the rally participants by organizing alternative “counter-rallies” in which authorities are determinedly trying to involve Uzbek people. By trying to openly cause a clash between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek people authorities are playing the fire! We state that the responsibility for possible aggravation of the interethnic relations is solely and fully on those who hold the power today!

Bothering recent events that the authorities try not to conceal with great zealousness have brought the country to the path of dangerous development: the White House is no longer able to control the people’s protests throughout the country and the President can no longer ensure fair and free elections and has ceased to be the guarantee of stability.

We fully and wholly share the position of the rally participants in Jalalabat and recognize the need for an extraordinary session of the Jogorku Kenesh of the 3rd assembly in order to assess the results of the first round, bring up the issue of the need for anticipated Presidential Elections and only then hold the Parliamentary Elections.

Poverty makes people sell their votes and it’s the poverty that is the cause of the protesting attitude of the people toward the authorities. Therefore, opposition forces in the country are addressing the donor countries to write off and restructure the debts of Kyrgyzstan in March of the current year. People’s distrust of the authorities multiplied by the extremely low living standards in many districts of the country leave no hopes for the people to see any improvement of the economic perspectives of the country as long as it is under Akayev’s regime.

We call for the President and the Government to stop the authorities’ rudely interfering with the electoral process!

The President if he is for fair elections must not ignore and hide from people during such dangerous times and, conversely, stop his subordinates who are crossing the line, the “police justice” of the White House in the first place!

We demand that fair elections with free competition and fair count of votes be held immediately!

We demand that Azattyk programming be allowed to resume, and that all political forces be given equal informational opportunities during the elections! Hands off the MSN and Respublica newspapers!

Bishkek,
March 7, 2005

Foundation & Tolerance International‘s report on the protests (from… Who else?):

Meetings have begun from March, 3 in the city of Jalal Abad supporting two candidates for Parliament, Bakiev Junush (brother of Kurmanbek Bakiev, the former prime minister) and Dooronbek Sadyrbaev.

On March, 4 – about 100–150 people have occupied a building of the regional state administration, not letting administrative people work. Work of the regional state administration has been stopped. Currently there are people in the building who already got in there on Friday. From many windows of administrative building, protesters have put out posters and slogans.

On 5-th of March – The Forum of Political Forces has joined the protests, among others Usen Sydykov, Kurmanbek Bakiev, Topchubek Turgunaliev, Bektur Asanaliev amd Dooronbek Sadyrbaev. The FPF includes the following movements and political parties: “National movement of Kyrgyzstan”, “Atazhurt”, “Jany – Bagyt”, the National congress of Kyrgyzstan, the Civil Union “For fair elections”. FPS, headed by Kurmanbek Bakiev, has put forward the demand to hold an extraordinary session of Jogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz Parliament) where the question of early election of President of KR will be considered.

For today conditions in Jalal Abad remain tense. Picketing remained at the square during the night. Yurts were set-up. People sleep there over night. Food is provided on a regular basis. The total number of participants of the public action exceeds 2000 persons.

A support group consisting of youth with slogans on arms and heads, shouting “down with authorities “, “resignation of Akaev”, “resignations of the governor”, have passed on the central street of city between the square, city administration and the central market and came to the place where the meeting was initiated. From the authorities’ side there were no obstacles.

Demands of demonstrators were the following:

1. Resignation of President of KR, the Governor and Mayor of Jalal Abad

2. To declare elections invalid

3. To demand the parliament to organize in a legitimate way a cancellation of the second round of elections and to hold Presidential elections within 3 months

4. To stop the broadcasting of JTR, Jalal Abat Regional TV-radio company, on the basis of falsifying events and betraying the public of Kyrgyzstan. This TV-radio company does not show the real facts of current political situations in Jalal Abad. (As all of you know, on 24th of February a unique independent broadcasting system “Azzatyk” was closed, through which the population of Kyrgyzstan found out about the current situation in a timely manner).

Meder Usenov, human rights activist, the head of regional committee “For Akaev’s resignation”, one of the most active members of the picket in Jalal Abad, contacted FTI with the request to invite independent mass-media for impartial, objective and operative highlighting of the situation and disseminating the real information on occurring events. Currently there is almost no information about the current situation through the governmental mass-media and if there is information it is distorted (for example that the picketers are drunk and dirty).

Today at AKI-press a press conference has taken place. The initiator was the Forum of Political Forces. There they described the current situation in Jalal-Abad and throughout the whole country. A statement was distributed. See attachment.

In the north of the country (Naryn) there are also meetings and demonstrations. About 500 supporters of the candidate Ishenbai Kadyrbekov organized a meeting on the central square of Naryn city in support of the candidate. His registration was withdrawn. Participants have made slogans and posters, such as «Resignation of the President», «the Damnation of district committee which took the decision on withdrawing the candidature of Kadyrbekov», etc. Demonstrators are demanding the resignation of the governor of area.

Within the framework of FTI’s project “Cooperation among the civic society, law enforcement agencies and other bodies of state authorities and governance to realize the citizens’ constitutional rights to peaceful free gatherings” National Coordination Council and Regional Coordination Council were established. Representatives of the civil society, authorities, law enforcement bodies and media are members of the councils. Today members of the national coordination council, consisting of civil society and mass media take off for Jalal Abad. Representatives of state authority and law enforcement bodies have refused to take part in this trip without providing convincible reasons.

The manager of the project and employees from FTI’s field offices are in Jalal Abad for carrying out monitoring of the situation.

We sincerely ask all readers to disseminate this information.

FTI has called all mass-media, both pro-governmental and independent to broadcast about the situation without bias.

And another interesting tidbit from Ben’s contacts is that Birge! is more or less a more radical offshoot of KelKel.

RFE/RL has an excellent report on the protests around the country:

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This post was written by...

Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.

Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.