Election protests continue

Opposition protest continued in many parts of Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday, expressing popular discontent with Sunday's run-off polls that have resulted in a strong majority for pro-government parties. The opposition accuses authorities of widespread abuses in the elections, in which President Askar Akayev secured an overwhelmingly loyal parliament. In the northern town of Talas, a few hundred supporters of Ravshan Dzheyenbekov, a former Akayev loyalist, stopped the local governor from leaving his office. "But he was released late on Tuesday evening," Tolekan Ismailova, head of a local NGO, Civic Society Against Corruption, told IRIN from Talas. Protesters also occupied a government building in the northeastern town of Kochkor on Wednesday, following similar protests in the southern towns of Jalal-Abad and Ozgon. "Today some 3,000 people attempted to seize the Kochkor district administration building. They demand free and transparent elections," observers from the Democracy and Civil Society NGO, from Naryn province, told IRIN. International election monitors in Kyrgyzstan said Sunday's run-off elections fell short of minimum international election standards. "Although both rounds of the elections were conducted in a peaceful manner, many violations took place which seriously influenced the outcome of the elections," ENEMO mission head, Peter Novotny, said on Monday. ENEMO is a group of civic organisations from 16 countries of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe that act as election monitoring groups in their countries. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s observer mission to Kyrgyzstan said the run-offs had also been marred by significant shortcomings. "The mission noted that some areas of concern remained unchanged from the first round, including lack of effective voter access to diverse sources of information, bias in the media, continued de-registration of candidates on minor grounds, which are within national law but restrict genuine competition, and inaccurate and poorly maintained voter lists." US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Stephen Young, said on Wednesday at a press conference in the capital Bishkek that he was in broad agreement with the OSCE observer mission's findings. "These negative tendencies have damaged Kyrgyzstan's reputation for promoting democracy," Young said. In Washington a day earlier, the US State Department called on Kyrgyz authorities to investigate allegations of fraud and electoral misconduct promptly and transparently. Kyrgyz authorities have been careful not to crack down on the protests, perhaps fearing they might spread if they are put down violently. But on Tuesday President Akayev's patience appeared to be wearing thin. "Those who have organised mass public disorder will be brought to justice for creating tension in some regions," he said on state television. Despite the ongoing protests, he ruled out any re-run of the controversial poll. "There will be no different assessment of the elections, the people have spoken through voting," Akayev said. There has been widespread speculation that Kyrgyzstan could follow the path of other ex-Soviet states like Ukraine and Georgia, where mass protests against flawed elections led to more democratic polls won by Western-orientated leaders. But opposition groups in Kyrgyzstan remain divided and unable to reach agreement on promoting one leader around whom popular discontent could grow, analysts have said.