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Eurasia
October 20, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
Atambayev managed to push for a referendum in December 2016 which weakened the presidency in favour of the prime minister. Having his loyal SDP party control the parliamentary majority and, therefore, having the power to appoint the prime minister, and, now, having successfully got the SDP candidate elected, Atambayev might end
up having sufficient leverage over Kyrgyz politics beyond his presidency.
If cemented further, SDP’s power as a dominant party could weaken Kyrgyzstan’s multi-party system by imposing more regulations on freedom of speech and, thus, securing future victories for the party. That would eventually lead to a situation mirroring the environment in Russia where “Unit- ed Russia” is the dominant party. Babanov’s
victory could have at least partially disrupted the emerging one-party framework. But now it will be up to future elections to challenge the SDP’s rule before its power can grow out of proportion.
Once called an “island of democracy”, the land- locked post-Soviet state has stirred fears that it is straying from its democratic path, leading Free- dom House’s Nations in Transit 2017 report to classify the country as a consolidated authoritar- ian regime.
Kyrgyzstan's democratic experiment does not end with the October 15 presidential vote. The next parliamentary election scheduled for 2020 is likely to be just as important to the country’s democrat- ic future, if not more so.
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