Pro-presidential parties dominate Kyrgyzstan parliamentary vote

Several opposition parties reject preliminary results showing four parties crossing the threshold to get representation in Parliament.

A woman casts a ballot at home during a parliamentary election in the village of Arashan, Kyrgyzstan [Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters]

Parties close to Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbay Jeenbekov have dominated a parliamentary election, according to preliminary data, though the figures were disputed by several opposition parties.

Results based on 95 percent of ballots cast on Sunday showed the Birimdik party of Jeenbekov’s younger brother, Asylbek Jeenbekov, and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party associated with the powerful Matraimov family – a presumed ally of the president – each getting roughly 24 percent of the vote.

A third pro-presidential party, the Kyrgyzstan Party, scored 9 percent of the votes according to the preliminary count released by the Central Election Commission, while a nationalist party, Butun Kyrgyzstan, just edged past the 7 percent threshold required for entry,

Another nationalist party, Mekenchil, looked set to miss out narrowly with 6.9 percent, leaving four parties in Parliament.

But three parties that failed to clear the threshold denounced the results on Sunday evening, with two of them staging a brief protest on the central square of the capital, Bishkek, which they said would continue on Monday.

Speaking after the vote, Janar Akayev, nominal leader of Ata-Meken, said the party considered the vote illegitimate and would join other parties in opposing the results “with radical methods”. His colleague Tilek Toktogaziyev called the trio of vote-topping parties a “three-headed dragon”.

“We the Social Democrats political party state that we have received evidence of hundreds of mass violations during the electoral process,” said a splinter group of the former governing coalition.

“The opposition parties are already starting to voice expressing their discontent,” said Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Bishkek.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were due to deliver their assessment of the vote on Monday.

More than a dozen political parties participated in the elections for the 120 seats in the unicameral national parliament.

Kyrgyzstan has seen two presidents overthrown since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 but has enjoyed relative stability since 2010.

Kyrgyzstan’s leadership has reinforced its relationship with Russia in recent years under the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and the
post-Soviet military alliance of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Opposition movements have been criticising those close ties, claiming such a relationship infringes on Kyrgyzstan’s independence.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies