An auspicious date
Apart from being the tenth day of the tenth month in the tenth year of the century, an auspicious date in Chinese astrology, Sunday was a day of special significance here in Kyrgyzstan. It was Election Day.
The election had long been anticipated after those momentous events in early April which led to the downfall of the Bakiev regime and the installation of an interim government. The intention to hold an election was made very early on after the revolution and even the prospective date was named. As I said, in Chinese astrology dates like 10/10/10 are thought to be particularly auspicious, but I doubt if that actually had anything to do with the choice.
There has been much debate about when, exactly, to hold the election. Some people wanted to bring it forward – others actually wanted it to be held later.
Organizing and conducting a national election, however, is not a simple task. It is a massive and complicated task and takes time to set one up. Counting back from the day itself, there needs to be a period for campaigning, and before that a period for registering the parties and their candidates, for putting in place the necessary machinery for conducting the plebiscite – basically, a minimum of two months. So, the earliest that an election could have been held if it had been announced immediately after the storming of the White house and Bakiev’s departure would have been sometime in June.
The provisional government, however, did not want to conduct an election under the old system which they felt to be flawed and had led to numerous problems and abuses. There were also problems over the legitimacy of the government and their decisions which had to be resolved first of all. So, they set in process a review of the constitution and the legislation governing electoral procedures. This also took time but, in fact, by the end of June they had already organized and conducted a successful referendum on these issues, despite the chaos and mayhem of social disorder which cost so many lives.
Then we entered the summer season, which is always a difficult time. Apart from the fact that people disappear for holidays, the weather is hot and bothered, and there is a mass of other tasks that have to be attended to, so early October was probably the first real opportunity the new authorities had for doing so.
In a way, the fact that it was possible to hold the election so soon, given the multitude of difficulties that they faced, (not counting the mayhem, death and destruction that occurred during the intervening period), is surprising. The fact that it seems to have gone so smoothly, with so few problems is astounding. There was the potential for many more, much more serious problems, than actually arose. They probably need to be congratulated on the fact that things seem to have turned out as well as they have.
It may seem odd to say that in the light of the mayhem, death and destruction that we have witnessed, but the fact remains that things could have been a lot worse.
On the day itself, I went for a couple of short walks around the city center to see if I could get a feel for the way that things were turning out.
Sunday is normally a quiet day. Just two or three of us in the office, trying to catch up on the workload and get ready for the coming week. The streets are normally quiet but by no means deserted. There are fewer people around as for most it is a non-working day – but, although the banks and many offices are closed, many of the shops and markets are open for business.
This week was no different in that the office was quiet – three of us as usual. In fact, on my morning walk the streets were quiet. It was just like a Sunday at home … two or three cars driving along the streets, a few people taking the morning air. I only saw one person walking purposefully as if he had a definite appointment to keep. As the day progressed, however, in the afternoon and early evening, the streets had become busier. Not as busy as on a weekday, but noticeably more people were out and about.
By evening, the parties had started. Somewhere nearby there was music playing and people were singing – and one of my neighbours emerged from his apartment to ask me if I thought there was trouble somewhere in the city. I was happy to say that I thought it was just people celebrating. It was too early for any results to be announced, but we did know that initial figures indicated that the turnout was something like 56.59% – not as good as in the referendum, but enough that the validity of the results should be beyond doubt – assuming that there were no cries of “foul play!”
As it happens, throughout the day there had been some claims of violations – the wrong procedures for marking the fingers of people as they voted; a polling station commission which was manned entirely by members of staff from just one workplace – a school as it happens; some question of people being bussed between polling stations; urns – ballot boxes – being full to overflowing (after all, the ballots themselves were huge – A3 size); a large number of “absentee ballots” (postal votes) issued in one particular village – hey, it was Maevka (!) and so on … but nothing that looks serious enough to bring the whole result into question.
One of the features of recent weeks was absent. Although some of the vehicles still sported flags which displayed their owners political allegiances, there were no loudspeakers vans. It wasn’t silent, however, as I saw a couple of convoys drive past, bedecked with flags and ribbons and with their horns blaring – wedding convoys. Life goes on, elections not withstanding – even momentous elections ushering in a new political system.
Presumably the newlyweds had their eyes on that auspicious date – 10/10/10.
In a way, it struck me as symbolic. As they start their new lives together as a new family, so Kyrgyzstan is starting its new life as a parliamentary democracy rather than a presidential one where power is concentrated centrally and democracy was, as Bakiev put it in the months before his demise, “consultative”.
Bishkek