Kyrgyzstan's fourth president: Atambayev

The election is over - and Almazbek Atambayev is due to be sworn in as Kyrgyzstan's next president before the new year.

I thought there was considerable interest leading up to the election, with huge billboards up and down the main streets, and pamphlets, cards, and newsletters passed out to voters in the micro-regions. However, even though it had the outward appearance of a competitive campaign, some of our friends say that real democracy is still out of reach.

Overall, the election seemed to go smoothly. The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) noted many "irregularities," such as names left off voter lists, multiple voting, and direct encouragement for state employees and students to vote for Atambayev - but nothing so flagrant as to warrant a recount. Atambayev received 63 percent of the vote, while his top two competitors, Kamchybek Tashiev and Adahan Madumarov, both from the south, took about 15 percent each. 

A billboard for Tashiev

Another for Madumarov

Most of our friends and acquaintances here expected Atambayev to win. He has ties to Moscow, favor with current interim president Roza Otunbayeva, and a name well-known in politics as acting prime minister. And judging by the number of billboards sporting his smiling face, he has money too. His campaign slogans centered around unity - вместе мы кыргызстан ("Together we are Kyrgyzstan"), thus gaining support from the Uzbek population in the south where there has been much ethnic tension.

Kalimatov was another of the 20-some candidates that made the ballot.

Suvanaliev's poster overlooks Sovietskaya.

Tashiev and Madumarov contested the election results, but nothing has come of it, and the south saw only a few protests. I, like most people, am hoping that Atambayev will have a positive impact on the country. 

Interestingly, Josh and I have been in Kyrgyzstan under each of its presidents. The first, Akaev, ruled with increasing corruption from the country's independence until 2005 when he was ousted by protestors in the first revolution. Bakiev became the second president, but the people's hopes for a new start turned sour as he proved as corrupt as the first. Riots and protests errupted in April last year with much more violent results, particularly in the south of the country where 400 people died in ethnic clashes. Bakiev fled, at which point Roza Otunbayeva became interim president. Now, having returned to Kyrgyzstan in time for the campaigns and election, we're about to see Kyrgyzstan's fourth president take the stage.