Salon.com > Baktybek Abdrisaev http://www.salon.com Fri, 24 May 2013 13:45:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The long shot in Central Asia http://www.salon.com/2010/10/15/central_asia_long_shot/ http://www.salon.com/2010/10/15/central_asia_long_shot/#comments Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:59:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/10/14/central_asia_long_shot Betting on democratization in Kyrgyzstan may seem a fool's errand. What chance is there for competitive politics in a poor, remote country that in recent months has experienced the overthrow of a president, an abortive restorationist coup and a massive outbreak of interethnic violence? Against all odds, Kyrgyzstan has thus far confounded the skeptics. In late June, it conducted a successful constitutional referendum, and on Sunday the citizens of Kyrgyzstan gave their verdict in a hotly contested parliamentary campaign, which was widely recognized as the fairest election in the history of Central Asia. In President Obama's words, the people of Kyrgyzstan "demonstrated by their participation in [Sunday's] historic election that they are committed to selecting their government through peaceful, democratic means."

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