Kyrgyz court throws poll results into doubt
BISHKEK (AFP) — Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court threw into doubt parliamentary election results on Tuesday by overturning a controversial measure that had helped prevent opposition parties winning seats.
Amid reports of spreading protests against the results of Sunday's election, Supreme Court Judge Kurmanbek Osmonov said the court was satisfying an appeal by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak-Zhol party to annul an election commission ruling.
The decision "is final and is not subject to appeal," he said.
The parliamentary polls were presented by Bakiyev as a way of resolving political uncertainty after a 2005 uprising in the Central Asian state. Instead the election was clouded by uncertainty over electoral regulations.
The mountainous ex-Soviet republic is closely watched by outside powers as it borders China and hosts both Russian and US airbases. The US base is used to support Western military operations in Afghanistan.
The Supreme Court overturned an election commission order that parties had to cross a five-percent threshold nationwide and gain a minimum of 13,500 votes in each of the country's nine regions to qualify for a seat in parliament.
Under that system, only the ruling Ak-Zhol party would have got into parliament according to preliminary results.
Tuesday's ruling opens the possibility of seats being awarded to the second-placed party Ata-Meken, which scored 9.0-percent nationwide without reaching the second threshold in three regions.
"On the basis of preliminary data two parties will get into parliament: Ak-Zhol and Ata-Meken," an election commission member, Zhenish Akmatov, told journalists.
Despite its chaotic politics, Kyrgyzstan has generally been considered the most democratic of the ex-Soviet Central Asian states.
But monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe judged that Sunday's parliamentary polls had failed to meet international standards and warned of "backsliding" on democracy.
On Tuesday there were isolated reports of protests, raising the spectre of a return to the unrest that followed parliamentary polls in 2005.
One leader of Ata-Meken, Temir Sariyev, told journalists the party would announce its plans after the election commission announced final results on Wednesday.
"The opposition does not recognise the election results, which were flagrantly falsified. We want recounts in half of polling stations. Our supporters are already gathering in various districts," he said.
In Bishkek around 50 protesters gathered outside the central election commission. Police quickly intervened, detaining about 20 people and loading them into two buses, an AFP reporter witnessed.
Kyrgyz news agency AKIpress reported that over 500 protesters had gathered in the village of Bokonbayevo in northern Kyrgyzstan and were threatening to take over the mayor's office.
Sariyev said protests were also taking place in the southern Osh province.
Flaws in the last parliamentary elections in 2005 prompted unrest that led to the overthrow of Kyrgyzstan's first post-Soviet president Askar Akayev. Three members of parliament were assassinated in the resulting unrest.
