International watchdogs noted tangible improvements toward free and fair elections, but pointed to new ways of rigging election results. Bakiyev himself, in a July 11 press conference, promised as his first geopolitical action to raise the issue of withdrawal of the U.S. military base deployment at Manas airport in accordance with a demand from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Initially, presidential elections were slated by the Central Election Commission (CEC) for October 2005. But the extreme degree of manipulation of the parliamentary election results of February 2005, which left the opposition without seats in the new Parliament, led to public protests that finally culminated in the seizure of the Government building on March 24, later recognized as revolution day. Askar Akayev fled to Russia without officially relinquishing ruling power. As an emergency action, the opposition appointed its leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev in charge of both the posts as acting president and prime minister until the situation clarified. As a result, the official resignation of Akayev, who feared political persecutions by returning, was held in the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow and a recording was shown to Kyrgyz parliamentarians and the public. The CEC decided to conduct early elections to stabilize the situation in the country after the post-revolutionary looting, land seizures and numerous cases of doubtful property redistributions.

“Those 88% of votes for Bakiyev confirm that the March 24 revolution was a popular revolt and that the resignation of the previous authoritarian and corrupt regime was right. In general, people voted not for the candidate, but against the previous regime and corruption. The voice of the nation came out for decisive steps for changing the old regime and changing the state nomenclature”, the leader of the NGO “Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society” Edil Baisalov state in a press conference Monday.

Michael Trend, representative of the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) election observation mission noted that the “July 10 election demonstrated measurable progress in Kyrgyzstan’s democratic movement. Improvements in election administration contributed to increases in transparency and fairness. The elections were a significant improvement over the parliamentary elections of February and March 2005, and provide an important example in democratic development for other countries in the region”.

In the meantime, international observers pointed to the large number of Kyrgyz citizens who voted by additional list. The OSCE noted the “removal of persons on the basis of their known absence from the country, despite retaining formal residence registration and outside the provisions for out-of-country voting. The objective appeared to be to increase the percentage turnout by decreasing the number of registered voters”. On Tuesday, first-ever in Central Asia female presidential candidate Toktayim Umetalieva said, “If CEC will compare basic and additional voters’ lists and recalculate voter turnout, it will find out that Bakiyev had taken 65% of votes”.

The same day, President Bakiyev in Bishkek and Kyrgyz Ambassador in Moscow Apas Djumagulov noted the need to specify a deadline for the U.S. presence in country. “The U.S. air force base will be gradually withdrawn, while the Russian military base in Kant city should stay”, Djumagulov said at a press conference. Observers started to speak about a possible shift in Kyrgyz-Russian relations and a departure from Akayev’s policy of a balanced approach to all strategic partners.

However, on July 12, acting deputy premier Feliks Kulov tried to clarify the situation. In an interview to Russian analyst Arkadiy Dubnov, the deputy premier said “I do not see anything terrible about the request of the SCO summit, because it discussed only the deadline of military base withdrawal, not about reconsideration of relations with the U.S. Demands are growing for resolving this issue in the nearest future”.