Hopes for Peace as Kyrgyzstan Votes for New President

The people of this strategically important Central Asian nation voted in a presidential election on Sunday, seeking an end to years of political turmoil, though some fear the vote could expose the regional and ethnic divisions that nearly tore the country apart last year.

The election results were not released on Sunday. If no candidate wins more than discount jerseys 50 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff, probably between candidates representing Kyrgyzstan’s rival northern and southern regions, analysts said.

It was the first presidential election since the bloody ouster in April 2010 of Kyrgyzstan’s authoritarian leader, Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev. That was followed by an explosion of violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks in the south of the country that led to nearly 500 deaths.

In the year and a half since, there have been no other major outbreaks of violence, though people in this former Soviet republic of about five million remain on edge.

“There is calm, yes, but it is not clear how long it will last,” said nfl jerseys cheap Kalia Kalchanbayeva, 53, who was selling cookies outside a polling place here in Bishkek, the capital. “What we need now is quiet.”

The election is being monitored closely by international observers, particularly the United States and Russia, both of which maintain military bases in Kyrgyzstan. The American air base, officially called a “transit center,” at the Manas airport outside Bishkek, is an important supply hub for NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Across Bishkek, election billboards offered promises of stability and renewed hope for the future, but at some polling places on Sunday, men in camouflage stood guard cradling assault rifles.

Observers say many Kyrgyz have grown cynical after years jerseys wholesale of political and social upheaval, and have little trust in the authorities.

“People are tired of protests; they do not want any more blood,” said Almazbek Atambayev, the projected front-runner in the election, outside a polling place. “We’ve already had enough revolution. It’s time to work.”

Regardless of the outcome, analysts said, Kyrgyzstan’s fortunes naty would be tied in the future to Russia. Kyrgyzstan’s leaders have pledged to join a Russian-led customs union with Belarus and neighboring Kazakhstan. Tens of thousands of Kyrgyz migrants work in Russia, sending remittances back to families at home.

Russia, which has backed particular Kyrgyz leaders in the past, has played a less visible role in this election.

Rather, the vote has come to underscore traditional rivalries steelers jerseys cheap between north and south Kyrgyzstan. Mr. Atambayev, a former prime minister and a northerner, faces stiff competition from two candidates from the south, including a former boxer known for getting into fistfights as a member of Parliament. Several candidates on Sunday vowed to reject results they considered illegitimate, prompting fears of future protests.

Independent analysts said they expected electoral violations to be minimal. The authorities raised eyebrows by banning local cable stations from broadcasting foreign channels like CNN and the BBC as the election approached. And they put Russian channels, which many Kyrgyz rely on for their news, on an hour delay. Officials said they wanted to prevent foreign intervention in the vote.

Still, in a region long dominated by authoritarian leaders, Sunday’s election was remarkable in that the outcome was not generally known beforehand. More than 80 candidates had declared their intentions to run in the election, though that number shrank to 16 by Election Day.

Since the violence last year, a caretaker government led by cheap nfl jerseysPresident Roza Otunbayeva has ushered in reforms designed to prevent future discord, including watering down the president’s powers and creating Central Asia’s first parliamentary republic.

There are now five political factions represented in the Parliament, a power-sharing arrangement that many here hope will allow Kyrgyzstan to curb the often violent political rivalries of the past.

Ms. Otunbayeva has vowed to step down at the end of the year, making her the first leader of Kyrgyzstan, and all of former Soviet Central Asia for that matter, to voluntarily leave power since the Soviet collapse. Armed mobs drove both of her predecessors out of the country.

Some, however, are unhappy to see Ms. Otunbayeva go.
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“I am so happy that we had this woman take this large burden upon her shoulders at a time when all the men were frightened to do so,” said Ishen Dzhangadiyev, a 55-year-old teacher. “She created stability, even though there were those who did not want it.”