Kyrgyz President Solidifies His Control of Parliament

President Askar A. Akayev of Kyrgyzstan has won overwhelming control of his nation’s parliament, according to preliminary results announced Monday in runoff elections carrying broad implications for democracy in Central Asia.

Akayev, 60, has been president since 1990, when Kyrgyzstan was still part of the Soviet Union. He is viewed as one of the less authoritarian leaders in a part of the world known for strongman rule. He has pledged to step down later this year as required by the constitution, which could set an important precedent in the region for a democratic transfer of power.

But in two rounds of much-criticized balloting, the opposition won just six out of 75 seats in the unicameral parliament that will be overwhelmingly loyal to Akayev, according to results announced Monday. That has raised fears that the president might use his control of parliament to rewrite the constitution to allow another term.

Some observers, both critics and supporters of Akayev, believe he might use momentum from Sunday’s balloting to hold a referendum giving him another five years in power in the poor and mountainous country of 5 million people.

Last week, presidential aide Abdil Seghizbayev, expressing anger at protests against electoral fraud, hinted that the president could do just that. “I want to ask the opposition: Do they want their actions to push the president to directly ask the people to confirm his powers for another term?” he said.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sent an observer mission, Monday described the second round of voting as showing “some technical improvements” over the first round, held Feb. 27.

But in the statement, OSCE mission head Lubomir Kopaj expressed concern over “bias in the media, continued deregistration of candidates on minor grounds ... and inaccurate and poorly maintained voter lists.”

“On the positive side, the right to assembly was more fully respected in the period between the two rounds of elections,” he said.

Opposition candidates won two of the 32 seats filled in the Feb. 27 vote. Of the 43 seats at stake in Sunday’s runoff, held in districts where no one candidate won a majority in the first round, opposition candidates took four seats, election officials said.

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, an opposition leader expected to run for president in October, failed to win a seat in parliament. Adakhan Madumarov, another prominent opposition leader and potential presidential candidate, also lost his bid, triggering protests Monday by thousands of his supporters in the southern town of Uzgen.

Those defeats marked a major success for Akayev’s camp, said Edil Baisalov, chairman of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a Kyrgyz group that monitored the polling.

“The story before the presidential election will run as follows: How can you really vote for these people when they didn’t even make it to parliament when they had a chance? What kind of president can such candidates be?” he said by telephone from Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.

Amanbay Satybaev, who heads For the People and With the People, an organization gathering signatures in support of a referendum to extend Akayev’s tenure, said in a telephone interview that the results proved the president had “created a workable, transparent democracy, that he is doing the right thing in the economic sphere, and that we need to allow him to extend his presidential term until all the planned reforms are carried out.”

Alleged unfair conduct of the elections, however, has angered many opposition leaders and their supporters. With protests underway in various parts of the country, some say critics of Akayev may be galvanized into more effective action.

“To me it is clear that it is very much like a pyrrhic victory for the regime,” said Kiyaz Moldokasymov, Bishkek bureau chief of U.S.-funded Radio Liberty. “From now on the popular protests will continue to grow.”

The Russian news agency Interfax reported protests Monday in at least six places across the country, including the seizure of local administrative offices in Uzgen and the northern town of Talas, and blockage for several hours of a highway to China.

Particularly in southern cities that are opposition strongholds, “people find it hard to put up with the way they were deceived, mistreated and manipulated during the election,” Baisalov, the election monitor, said.

“Should Akayev choose to change the constitution and run for a new term, this may give a new impetus to the political struggle of the opposition, which then may seriously capitalize on the growing popular discontent,” he said.

Bolotbek Maripov, defeated in his bid for parliament by the president’s daughter, Bermet Akayeva, said by telephone that he had lost “to the powerful state machine, which stopped at nothing to prevent me from winning.”

“Loyal voters were brought to the polling stations by the carload,” Maripov said. “Special minibuses and cars were commuting all day to the polling stations in such manner. Votes were bought, people were pressured, they were deceived and manipulated into voting the way the authorities wanted them to vote. Well, I got about 40%, Akayeva got about 54%. But people who really cared to see the truth know what was going on.”

“These elections helped the opposition to open the eyes of more and more people in our country to what is really going on with our democracy, economy and politics,” he said.

“The invaluable experience of these elections will certainly make the opposition come together.... Nothing is lost yet. The real struggle is still ahead.”

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.