Who is President?
Radio Free Europe
After president elections in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission has announced the final results of July 23 elections, officially confirming that Kurmanbek Bakiev has been reelected to a second term in office with more than 76 percent of the vote. Bakiev, who turns 60 on August 1, was a city and regional Communist Party official when Kyrgyzstan was a Soviet republic, and after independence was a district head in southern Kyrgyzstan. In 1997, he became governor of Chu Province, where Bishkek is located. In 2000 he was named prime minister.
He resigned in May 2002 amid popular unrest and widespread protests at his government’s failure to address the shooting of protesters by police during a demonstration two months earlier.
Bakiev joined the opposition and in March 2005 became a leader of the Kyrgyzstan People’s Movement, one of several opposition groups trying to capitalize on the growing protests over parliamentary elections. He was named acting head of state just hours after crowds chased the previous head of state from the country, in a process that has never been fully clarified.
Bakiev then won an early presidential election in July 2005, receiving nearly 89 percent of the vote in the only Central Asian election to date to be considered free and fair by the OSCE.
Censorship helped president’s reelection
Harassment of the news media throughout the Kyrgyz presidential election campaign prevented them from providing independent coverage, Reporters Without Borders said today.
According to the official figures, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev won election with 76 per cent of the vote, while the leading opposition candidate, Almazbek Atambayev, got only 8 per cent.
Both Atambayev and the OSCE say there was “massive fraud.”
Radmila Shekerinska, the head of the OSCE electoral monitoring mission, said: “Kurmanbek Bakiyev had an unfair advantage due to the government resources available to him for manipulating news coverage and due to the media bias in his favour during the campaign. The lack of information significantly distorted these elections.”
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