#195: Rule of Law?

My week-long excitement with the gradschool prospects has been overridden by yesterday's comments of Parliament Speaker Adaham Madumarov, also leader of Ak Jol Party, who said that the Central Election Commission does not have to report to anyone on anything, when he was asked why the December 16 elections results have still not been published. These remarks were made on the 100th day of the Ak Jol-controlled parliament.

The Election Code clearly states in Article 77.7 that elections results have be published within 2 weeks after the election day. It is a very bad tendency for the government and the country in general if laws, let alone the rules of the game, are not respected and dismissed by government officials as high as the Speaker of the Parliament.

It is similar to when Zimbabwe's Mugabe did not want to publish elections results, but claimed victory. The different being that Mugabe is getting a lot of regional and international pressure (it was one of top stories in international news), while it seems the world has forgotten about Kyrgyzstan, once known as the "island of democracy."