Kyrgyzstan: Parties Struggle for Power · Global Voices
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Political events in Kyrgyzstan for the past several weeks have spurred a lot of discussions, assumptions and dispute among Kyrgyz bloggers. Following president Bakiev's decree on dissolution of the Kyrgyz Parliament and resignation of the government, new parliamentary elections will be held on December 16 this year, and about fifty political parties applied for participation in these elections.
Edil Baisalov informs that the Social Democratic Party, led by Almazbek Atambaev, had its VIII conference on 10th November in the Ballet and Opera Theatre and announced the party list. Atambaev, acting Prime-Minister of Kyrgyzstan, declared that he will do his best to ensure that the parliamentarian election is fair and transparent (AKIpress):
As a chairman of the party I will try to make sure that the election is held fairly and freely, since any gerrymander during and after the election will lead to disunity in the country. One revolution was enough for us.
On AKIpress forum, Aibek1961 leaves a witty reply to Atambaev’s statement:
Free election is something new in our practice. If it is going to be free and fair, then the Social Democratic Party would lose out.
The pro-presidential party Ak-Zhol that was created nearly a month ago had also held its conference and announced the party list members among whom there are Cholpon Baekova, a Chair of the Constitutional Court, State Secretary Adahan Madumarov and five ex-MPs. Kyrgyz bloggers were unhappy to see the change of the position of ex-MP Kabai Karabekov, who was one of the strongest opponents of the government during the April strike and now joined Ak-Zhol. For instance, bored says:
Shame on Karabekov! I did not expect it from him, I am really disappointed..
While Yad has a more realistic approach:
Nothing to be surprised about. For me it was even more surprising to see for how long he was pretending to be in opposition.
Ex-Prime Minister Felix Kulov is a chair of the Ar Namys party, which has not released its party list, because the law enforcement bodies launched an examination of the party conference's delegates. During a press conference given to AKIpress, he said:
Should there be mass falsifications during the parliamentary elections on December 16, the spring of 2008 would be very unpleasant in combination with increase of prices for food products.