Sunday's parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan has produced no clear winner, setting the stage for a fractured legislature.
Five parties out of 29 contestants cleared the five-per-cent threshold to win seats in the 120-member Parliament. With 95 per cent of the votes counted, the nationalist Ata Zhurt came first with less than nine per cent. Fifty-seven per cent of the 2.8 million eligible voters cast their ballot.
The pro-Moscow Ar-Namys finished a close third with 7.46 per cent of the votes, and may become a kingmaker in any coalition, which will require at least three parties to come together to get a parliamentary majority.
International observers hailed the peaceful vote that followed bloody ethnic violence four months earlier. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) team, in particular, praised the election as a “further consolidation of the democratic process”.
Local analysts, however, were less upbeat. The Kyrgyz wire agency Parus (Sail) wrote the election may have produced a badly split Parliament that will be incapable of any decision-making.
Two of the five winning parties — Ata Zhurt, which comprises colleagues of the former President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in the April coup; and Ar-Namys, led by the former KGB General, Felix Kulov — are strongly opposed to a parliamentary system of government approved in a June referendum and vowed to restore a strong presidential rule.
