Vote buying and the use of administrative resources looked like the early winners in Kyrgyzstan's October 4 parliamentary elections, although it quickly became apparent it might be a temporary victory.
Officials initially signaled that preliminary figures showed only four of the 16 parties competing had reached the 7 percent threshold needed to win seats.
Two parties seen as pro-government -- Birimdik (Unity) and Mekenim Kyrgyzstan (My Homeland Kyrgyzstan) -- took 24.53 and 23.9 percent of the vote, respectively.
Though President Sooronbai Jeenbekov repeatedly said he did not favor any party in the run-up to the vote, his younger brother Asylbek's candidature for the Birimdik party suggested to some that the president might not be impartial.
There were many accusations of school directors, factory owners, landlords, and local town and village chiefs telling their employees, tenants, and fellow community members to vote for a certain party.
That's one of the most common violations in elections throughout Central Asia. Such stories were told during the first elections the five newly independent countries held in the 1990s and continue to surface with every new election. But in Kyrgyzstan, where elections are far more competitive, it can dramatically alter the results.
Vote Buying
Many of the accusations of local pressure being applied to voters ahead of these elections appeared to have Birimdik's fingerprints on them. Aside from the president's brother, the party boasts several members of the government among its candidates, some of whom were accused of putting the squeeze on local leaders.
Similarly, allegations of vote buying were made against several of the 16 parties involved in the parliamentary elections, but the party most often mentioned was Mekenim Kyrgyzstan.
Mekenim Kyrgyzstan is widely viewed inside the country as being allied with Raimbek Matraimov, a former deputy chief of the Customs Service and a reputed crime boss.
Matraimov is the subject of several in-depth reports on corruption published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Kyrgyzstan's independent Kloop media outlet, and RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, and Bellingcat.
Matraimov's brother Iskender ran as a Mekenim Kyrgyzstan candidate.
There were numerous messages issued ahead of the vote urging people not to sell their votes, but these are especially hard economic times in Kyrgyzstan due to the economic downturn that accompanied the spread of the coronavirus.
Many Kyrgyz are desperate to feed their families and pay bills.
There were credible reports of cash payouts for people's votes in the weeks leading up to the elections: part of the payment up front and the remainder once the ballot was cast.
There were dozens of videos and photographs posted on social networks on election day that showed people photographing their marked ballots, seemingly as proof they had fulfilled their part of the vote-buying bargain and were eligible for the balance of their payment.
Vans and minibuses turned up outside polling stations across the country, fueling suspicions that parties were ferrying their paid voters between multiple polling stations.
Several hours before the polls were closed, lawmaker Irina Karamushkina, who was a candidate for the opposition Social Democrats, was calling for these "most cynical and dirtiest elections" to be declared illegitimate.
Besides Birimdik and Mekenim Kyrgyzstan, another party seen as pro-government, the Kyrgyzstan party, also appeared to have won seats, with 8.73 percent of the vote.
Initially, a lone opposition party, Butun Kyrgyzstan, was said to have met the parliamentary threshold, with 7.13 percent.
Early Protests
By the time the preliminary election results were announced in the evening on October 4, Social Democratic supporters had already started a protest rally on Bishkek's central Ala-Too Square.
Supporters of the Meken Yntymagy (Homeland Security) party and the Chong Kazat (Great Crusade) party were also demonstrating outside the headquarters of the Central Election Commission (BShK).
The Ata-Meken (Fatherland), Reforma, Respublika, Zamandash (Contemporary), Ordo (Horde), and Bir Bol (Stay Together) parties had also released statements vowing not to recognize the election results.
Even the religious-based Yyman Nuru (Ray of Faith) party cast doubt on the results.
Meanwhile, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyzstan party, both of which won seats in parliament, boldly asserted that they thought they should have received more votes.
Virtually all of the opposition parties called for rallies the day after the vote.
On October 5, more than 1,000 supporters of five parties -- Reforma, Meken Yntymagy, Chong Kazat, Yyman Nuru, and Ordo -- gathered in Bishkek, and some of the first speakers were participants in the April 2010 revolution that toppled then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev.
Supporters of the Ata-Meken, Respublika, Bir Bol, and Zamandash parties gathered outside the Opera and Ballet Theater in the capital before marching to Ala-Too Square, where the crowd had grown to several thousand.
Mekenchil (Patriotic) party leader Kamchybek Tashiev soon joined the rally, too.
People chanted slogans against "thieves" in government and vowed they would not accept the election results.
There were similar demonstrations involving hundreds of people in the cities of Naryn and Talas.
All these groups are pledging to continue their rallies until the results are annulled.
Some demonstrators on Ala-Too Square set up yurts to emphasize their determination to stay until their demands were met.
The Butun Kyrgyzstan party, which was among the parties that won seats in the elections, also sided with the demonstrators and -- together with the 11 parties represented in the October 5 demonstrations -- backed a memorandum demanding that the BShK annul the results of the elections by midnight.
The group did not say what it intended to do if its demands were not met.
That leaves one to wonder whether Birimdik and Mekenim overplayed their hands. But the public anger could entangle others.
'Jeenbekov Out!'
President Jeenbekov's efforts to appear aloof from the campaign and elections could work against him.
He had pledged that administrative resources would play no role in the outcome of elections. But there are widespread accusations that such tools played a significant role in the success of his brother's party, Birimdik.
In early September, Jeenbekov responded to reports of vote buying by saying the "decision to sell one’s vote is a personal decision."
And Jeenbekov repeatedly responded to questions about vote buying by saying he had not seen any concrete evidence to support the claims -- never mind that such evidence would mean someone filing a complaint with police and risking reprisals from anyone trying to buy the votes.
It now appears that many people fear that vote buying played a key role in these elections, and there is now substantial evidence on social networks that it did take place.
As a result, critics are probably hoping that Jeenbekov’s performance as president over the past three years receives a lot more public scrutiny.
Some of the demonstrators on Bishkek's Ala-Too Square on October 5 were chanting, "Jeenbekov ketsin!" ("Out with Jeenbekov!")
Eleven of the 12 parties that initially failed to win parliamentary seats are now protesting the results. Even by the official tally so far, they account for a combined 32 percent of the vote in these elections.
Some 43 percent of eligible voters, or about 1.5 million, did not cast ballots, and many of them might also protest the election results, not to mention the almost 3 million more Kyrgyz citizens who were not registered to vote.
By midday on October 5, there were already accusations that the Central Election Commission was working to manipulate the vote count to allow another opposition party to win seats, although that threatens to make the results appear not more but less legitimate.
Many predicted that there would be cheating in these elections, but it seems no one imagined it would reach the levels that the opposition is now claiming.
Kyrgyz authorities might not have much time to propose a credible solution.
Independent Kyrgyzstan has seen two revolutions already, and many Kyrgyz might believe there are more and better reasons to be angry now than during either of those two upheavals.
