Kyrgyzstan: vote buying and pressure on voters
On July 11, Kyrgyzstan held repeated elections of deputies to the city councils of Tokmok, Bishkek and Osh. Despite the sad experience of the past year, there were some violations.
The monitoring of the repeated elections was carried out by the staff of the Ombudsman Institute. They identified a number of violations. Namely, observers filed a complaint against the deputy director of the Industrial-Pedagogical College of Tokmok that she put pressure on students, forcing them to vote for the party “Emgek”.
In addition, according to human rights activists, the rights of people with disabilities were violated at the elections. In particular, they note that at five polling stations of the election commission (PSs No. 202, No. 1215, No. 1202, No. 1337 and No. 1214) access to voting wasn’t organized for PWDs. Three polling stations were on the second floor, while the remaining two lacked ramps for free movement in a wheelchair.
“The polling station No. 7076 in Chui region reported a massive delivery of voters. This fact was reported to the police. We also went to the site to check the information. As a result, it was established that there was no mass delivery of voters at this polling station. At the same time, indeed, there was a crowd of people on its territory,” human rights activists explain.
According to statistics from law enforcement agencies, they received 67 reports of violations of electoral legislation during the election day. Of these, three cases were registered in the Unified Register of crimes and misdemeanors under article 192 “Vote buying” of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic. It’s clarified that all the facts of vote buying relate to the elections in Bishkek. Two more cases were opened in the city of Osh under article 119 “Disorderly conduct”.
At the same time, Bishkek leads in the number of complaints about violations. 37 complaints were filed there. 18 were in Tokmok and 12 – in Osh.
Among the observers, who reported violations, were the public foundation “Common cause” (22 violations) and Kloop (5 violations). They concerned the secrecy of voting, the operation of equipment, as well as campaigning for Bir Bol, Uluttar Birimdigi and Ishenim parties. Representatives of these political associations monitored the voter lists and marked those who voted. They couldn’t clearly answer the questions of the media for what this was being done.
On July 11, in three cities of Kyrgyzstan – Bishkek, Osh and Tokmok – the repeated elections of deputies to city councils took place.
26 parties took part in the repeated elections, which nominated 2,204 candidates for 121 mandates.
