Chairman of the Central Elections Committee Akylbek Saryev dismissed the idea today that the Kyrgyz government will conduct a repeat of this month’s parliamentary elections if serious mistakes are found in the vote-counting verification process. His comments came after some political parties said they would demand a repeat election if discrepancies are found.
The committee began the verification process today, comparing ballots from various polling stations against the submitted results. The process will take approximately one week to complete. If serious differences in the results are discovered, the committee will consider conducting a recount of votes at affected polling stations.
It is unclear when the election results will be announced officially, as the Kyrgyz election law does not stipulate a specific cut-off date for compiling and announcing the results, Mikhail Korsunsky, a committee official said.
In the meantime, public protests continued today, with protestors demanding that the government uphold the original 5 percent threshold of votes needed nationally for a party to win election to parliament. While the Butun Kyrgyzstan Party met the original threshold, it did not meet the new threshold after it was adjusted for an increase in voters on election day. Protestors demanded to speak to President Roza Otunbayeva about the change. The rhetoric escalated when Marat Kaiypov, a member of the Butun Kyrgyzstan Party and a former minister of justice, said the government should be replaced if it decides against the party’s interests.
Emil Kaptagayev, President Otunbayeva’s chief of staff, responded that Kyrgyzstan has survived four coup d’état attempts since the April uprising and called for an end of the country’s turmoil.
