Kyrgyzstan's Moscow-backed prime minister claimed victory on Monday in a presidential election tainted by charges of voting abuses and protests by defeated challengers from the restive south of the former Soviet republic. With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, pro-business Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev had 63 percent of the vote, an outright majority that avoids the need for a second round run-off against a potentially strong rival fsrom the south.
Atambayev's win reinforces reforms designed to make Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country of 5.5 million, Central Asia's first parliamentary democracy after 20 years of authoritarian rule that triggered a bloody revolution in April last year. A trouble-free election would signal the first peaceful transfer of power in the mainly Muslim country, which lies on a drugs route out of nearby Afghanistan and hosts both Russian and US military air bases.
But international observers reported cases of ballot box stuffing and vote buying, while a group of candidates vowed to challenge the result even before polls had closed on Sunday. About 200 supporters of third-placed Kamchibek Tashiyev, a trained boxer popular in the south, rallied for several hours in Jalalabad and blocked a major road. Dozens more gathered in Osh, the largest city in the south, before dispersing.
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