Updating from my previous post in which I observed that

people voted for Bakiev just for the sake of voting for him, rather than any specific policies or ideological alignment

I found that this problem was quite widespread. Basically, although the election was relatively clean from a technical standpoint, it was not a great election from the point of view of the political philosophy underpinning the purpose of elections. I tend to view elections from the point of view of the voter, in which the act of voting is like buying something - it is a strategic decision designed to bring benefit to one’s life. The question a voter should ask is ‘which candidate will bring me the most benefit?’ (how ‘benefit’ is defined is entirely subjective and is the reason modern democracies are so pluralistic)

On July 11, I spoke with several people living in the rural area the Chui Valley, east of Bishkek. They said that many voters predicted that Bakiev would win, so they just voted for Bakiev. They said that the debates were weak and that unprofessional (unfortunately, I missed them so I can’t really comment). Although they said that the media did a good job of communicating information, when I asked them to name specific policies, programs or promises of candidates other than Bakiev, they could not. This problem of a lack of voter knowledge of platforms seems to be a persistent trend in looking at the problems of voting. On July 10, I noticed that the poster with statements by all of the candidates that seemed to be part of a package that included posters on how the ink system worked was haphazardly posted in some of the polling stations - in some, it was outside for everyone to read (which nobody I saw did) before voting, but in many others, it was behind the poll workers and thus inaccessible to voters or in another random place that people would not be able to notice before casting their vote.

They said that on several occasions, Bakiev’s operatives called them from government offices to tell them that they must vote for him. Although they saw the election as moving in the right direction, they said that others saw it as simply a ‘change of hats’ - nothing substantive. They said that local election officials were under pressure to make sure that as many people voted as possible because the election would be invalid if turnout was under 50%. People were afraid that something would happen on election day - another person I spoke with said that there were rumors afloat that if under 50% voted, the opposition candidates would unleash a protest in Bishkek similar to March 24 or June 17. Fortunately, election day was peaceful (if a little too peaceful - they said that this time of the year is the prime time for working in the fields and that it was difficult to get people to come into centers to vote). It seems like voting has become acceptible among the general populace - although they know that they are no longer forced to vote as they were during Soviet times, they know that it is a good thing to do.

The OSCE press conference was a good complement to the day’s visit - it highlighted all of the things that went well with the election: the equipping of the polling stations, training of workers, collection and counting of ballots and reporting of results. It seems that even though the election was relatively clean (see report for some of the concerns), it may not have been representative and, contrary to what some have told me that the act of voting in an internationally legitimate election will be a transformational event for many Kyrgyz, it seems that the country still has a long way to go before it becomes a functioning democracy. Now that the international community has brought clean elections to Kyrgyzstan, can they help create a functional party system that will make voting an act of genuine political expression?