Sixteen political parties will run for parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan slated for Oct. 4, 2020.
The Kyrgyz parliament has 120 seats with members elected for a five-year term by party-list proportional voting. To win seats, parties must pass a national electoral threshold of 7%, and receive at least 0.7% of the vote in each of the seven oblasts. No one party is allowed to hold more than 65 seats. Party lists are required to have at least 30% of the candidates from each gender, and every fourth candidate had to be of a different gender. Each list is also required to have at least 15% of the candidates being from ethnic minorities and 15% of under 35 years old, as well as at least two candidates with disabilities.
Earlier, several opposition parties called on the government to postpone the elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Later, head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Kyrgyzstan Nurzhan Shaildabekova explained that elections are not held if a state of emergency or martial law is introduced. She said that the entire world is already adapting, that the epidemiological situation may still continue: there may be a second and third waves of the pandemic. Anyway she hopes that the epidemiological situation will remain stable and there is no need to resolve the issue of elections.
The election campaign has begun on Sept. 4 and currently, all the parties are engaged in an active pre-election campaign. At the beginning, more than 40 parties announced their intentions to participate in the elections. However, more than half of them were unable to fulfill all the necessary requirements for the registration.
Among 16 registered parties just five are new parties and the rest have already participated in various elections and have some experience.
This year, the Kyrgyz authorities urged the participating parties to work online as much as possible through the media, social media due to the COVID-19 pandemic raging around the world. The authorities also banned to conduct mass events - concerts, sports events and other activities during the campaign period. Gatherings are allowed no more than 100 people in compliance with all sanitary norms.
Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan is taking all measures for the organization and holding safe parliamentary elections and developed an algorithm for campaigning and voting itself. A novelty of the elections will be the restriction of gathering of people during the pre-election period, and on the Election Day.
CEC promises that all their staff, observers and journalists who cover the elections will be provided with protective suits. On the Election Day the voters will undergo temperature checks, the polling stations will undergo periodically disinfection processes.
Earlier Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan Abdyzhapar Bekmatov told Kabar News Agency that in preparing for the elections, the CEC held consultations with colleagues from other countries where elections were held during the pandemic.
Kyrgyzstan is not the only country to conduct the elections during the pandemic. The elections were already held in South Korea, Poland, and Russia. In addition, elections were held in Syria, where martial law was introduced. Such countries like USA, Georgia, and Ukraine plan to conduct elections in spite of the pandemic.
Kyrgyzstan’s Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov recently noted that the upcoming parliamentary elections are notable for the fact that they will be held during the coronavirus pandemic. “A major political event requires high organization, including ensuring epidemiological security at the polling stations themselves during the voting period and preventing citizens from becoming infected. We face the task of ensuring all conditions for holding open and fair elections," he said.
President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in his regular online meetings with Prime Minister Boronov every time stress the necessity to ensure proper technical and sanitary readiness of polling stations, to strengthen control over compliance with electoral legislation.
In one of his regular interviews with the state radio the head of state noted that clean elections are one of the main conditions for the country's development.
President Jeenbekov said that the transparency and fairness of elections, apart from the President and the Central Election Commission, is also the responsibility of political parties, politicians, public activists, voters.
The head of state added that, in general, the upcoming elections will be held in accordance with the law and contribute to the formation of parliamentary democracy.
According to data of the CEC, in total there are 3 million 523 thousand 532 voters in Kyrgyzstan. 2 thousand 474 polling stations will operate during elections, 44 of them are opened abroad.
To monitor the elections some representatives of international organizations arrived in Kyrgyzstan to observe the elections.
The OSCE/ODIHR mission deployed 24 long-term observers, but due to travel restrictions because of the pandemic originally planned 350 short-term observers couldn’t arrive in Kyrgyzstan.
In addition, the mission of observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States will monitor the parliamentary elections.
The Central Election Commission also accredited representatives of diplomatic organizations (Japanese and German ambassadors to the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as their deputies, state secretaries of embassies, heads of departments) as international observers.
Besides, 210 media organizations have been accredited to cover the major event in the Central Asian country.
Nurzhan Kasmalieva
Kabar News Agency
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