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Incumbent set for landslide win in Kyrgyzstan vote
Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:36am EDT
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By Maria Golovnina and Olga Dzyubenko
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Early results from Kyrgyzstan's presidential election gave an overwhelming lead to incumbent Kurmanbek Bakiyev in a vote the opposition said was rigged.
The vote on Thursday triggered the worst political crisis in Kyrgyzstan in years at a time when the West is keen to preserve stability in a country lying on a key supply transit route for U.S. troops fighting the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.
The central election commission said on Friday Bakiyev had 89.2 percent of the vote after more than a third of ballots had been counted. Opposition challenger Almazbek Atambayev, who has denounced the election as rigged, had six percent, it said.
"Bakiyev lost this election. Kyrgyzstan has no legitimate president. He could have easily been given 190 percent," Atambayev told Reuters after the early count was announced.
"This election has been stolen from us. We plan to offer evidence of election fraud."
An impoverished nation of alpine villages, clan rivalries and strong nomadic traditions, Kyrgyzstan appeared calm after a day of tension but the opposition said it planned more protests.
In a small regional town on Thursday, police fired in the air and used batons to break up a crowd of protesters. Bakiyev has vowed to use all means to preserve stability.
The Muslim nation lies at the center of U.S.-Russian rivalry for control of Central Asia, a vast, conflict-prone region north of Iran and Afghanistan, and both the United States and Russia have military air bases in the country.
Analysts said long-term threats to stability remained after Thursday's outburst of opposition anger.
"Overall, a Bakiyev victory would signal policy continuity," Eurasia Group said in a research note. "But in the longer term, the level of macro-level political risk is relatively high in Kyrgyzstan. The country's political institutions are weak, corruption is endemic, and organized crime permeates the top levels of government."
Atambayev said his observers had documented cases of widespread ballot stuffing, adding that a number of his monitors had been harassed at polling stations. The central election commission said it had no evidence of serious violations.
Observers from the election monitoring arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were due to give their assessment of the vote later on Friday.
STABILITY, DEMOCRACY
"Long-term stability only comes with the strengthening of democratic institutions and democracy in general," Janez Lenarcic, head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, told Reuters.
Peace in Kyrgyzstan is key to regional powers keen to prevent the spread of violence from Afghanistan and insulate broader Central Asia from the rise of radical Islam. Continued...
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