Akayev in foreign plot claims over Kyrgyz poll

KYRGYZ President Askar Akayev has charged the country’s opposition with attempting a coup in protests over a disputed parliamentary poll, claiming the effort was financed and managed from abroad.

“The actions of home- grown revolutionaries are a direct challenge to the people and the government. These personalities are directed and funded from abroad and are causing direct damage to the interests of the people,” Mr Akayev told reporters in the capital yesterday.

The statement followed a week of intense protests after a March 13 run-off election that saw the opposition’s presence in the 75-member parliament reduced to a handful of seats. Earlier the Kyrgyz leader ruled out instituting a state of emergency to deal with the situation as he addressed the first session of the new parliament.

“Our republic has been faced with dangerous and destructive actions of an intransigent opposition,” Mr Akayev told the deputies.

“All of this is consciously directed at provoking the authorities to the use of force,” he said. “In connection to this, I would like to state that I, as president, will never take such measures.”

Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan’s top election official said the two-round ballot was valid.

“The elections were carried out in a transparent, democratic, legitimate and open manner,” Sulaiman Imanbayev told the deputies.

Opposition members stayed away from yesterday’s meeting.

The opposition in Kyrgyzstan, a poor mountainous central Asian country of five million people, charges that Mr Akayev’s administration rigged the poll to pack the chamber with his supporters ahead of a presidential election in October.

Mr Akayev, 60, has ruled the republic sandwiched between China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for nearly 15 years.

Two of his children, daughter Bermet and son Aidar, won seats during the election.

The opposition meanwhile, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to “objectively” judge the protests.

The cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in Kyrgyzstan’s impoverished south near the border with Uzbekistan have borne the brunt of the demonstrations, which have seen protestors take over several government buildings, police stations and airports.

The EU, UN, US and Russia have all expressed concern over the unrest in Kyrgyzstan, which has always been considered the most liberal country in ex-Soviet Central Asia. Russia, the region’s powerbroker, is struggling for influence over the strategic region with the US.

Moscow and Washington have a military base in Kyrgyzstan. Washington’s troops are located at the airport in Bishkek, having first deployed there after the September 11, 2001, attacks for strikes against the Taliban regime in nearby Afghanistan.

Observers have described Kyrgyzstan’s unrest as the third people power revolution on former Soviet territory, following ‘orange’ protests in Ukraine last year and a ‘rose revolution’ in Georgia at the end of 2003.