Observing or participating in regime change? Kyrgyz perspectives on the role of international election observation missions in 2005
Original version
Working Paper, NUPI nr 696. NUPI, 2006Abstract
This report offers an in-dept analysis of the role of international election observation
missions in during the political upheavals in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. It presents the work
of three leading, young academics from Kyrgyzstan. The report forms part of the ‘NUPI
Network for Election Observation and Exchange’. This is project that is supported by the
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The starting point for the assessments presented
here is the realisation that international election observer missions played a central part in
the events that eventually lead to the toppling of President Askar Akaev’s administration
in march 2005. Kyrgyzstan is also a case that highlights the immense challenges that face
election observation missions in non consolidated democracies of the former Soviet Union.
Many of these countries, Kyrgyzstan included, have developed traditions of deep-seated
and sophisticated manipulation of election procedures. Given these preconditions, the three
articles aim to assess from differing perspectives how election observation was conducted in
the country in 2005.
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