Kyrgyz Election Campaign Goes Viral

The election campaign in Kyrgyzstan has seen the competing parties make unprecedented use of social networking sites and blog pages. Analysts say the flurry of web campaigning will not swing the vote, but could stir up some interest among younger voters who are often regarded as apolitical. 

As campaigning for the October 10 parliamentary election has heated up over the last month or so, several party leaders have set up accounts with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

It is a remarkable change. Until recently, few of Kyrgyzstan’s parties – there are 29 running in this election – even had websites. Fewer still were active in social networking and blogging, the exceptions including current interim president Roza Otunbaeva, Social Democrat politician Bakyt Beshimov, and Edil Baisalov, now leader of the Aykol-El party.

In an interview for IWPR, Temir Sariev, leader of the Akshumkar party, spoke of the importance of reaching out to the internet generation, a well-educated class of voters which he believes his party should be targeting.

Sariev recalled the importance of social networking sites during the news blackout imposed in April by the then authorities during the popular unrest which ultimately unseated Kurmanbek Bakiev from the presidency.

“Twitter, for example, became almost the only place for information about what was happening in the country,” he said.

Sariev took part in an online meeting on September 25 that subsequently led to a larger internet debate, and he plans to continue using Facebook and Twitter after the election, albeit less frequently.

Baisalov, whose blog in 2006 was one of the first launched by a Kyrgyz politician, is well aware of the benefits of using these sites, but is nevertheless sceptical that they will become a lasting political tool beyond the current wave of enthusiasm.

Green Party leader Nargiza Abdyldaeva has been writing a blog for her group for the past two years, after the then authorities closed down its website. She believes the blog serves as a platform to appeal to the Green’s target audience of young people.

The Ata-Jurt party, a new party that has emerged with strong support in southern Kyrgyzstan, is using the internet as an effective and cheap way of spreading its political message at home, and also among the hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz migrants working abroad.

“Ata-Jurt is an opposition party and it’s very difficult to access TV and other media to get our message across to public,” the party’s press office says.

Analysts agree that social networking sites are an important new medium, but some note that there is a difference between curious visitors looking at a party’s the Facebook site and them actually going out to vote for it.

Abdyldaeva argues that the growing number of web users are especially important as they reflect popular mistrust in Kyrgyzstan’s press and broadcast media.

The head of the Central Asia Free Market Institute, Mirsuljan Namazaliev, says social networking sites provide politicians with access to important segments of the electorate – urban voters, young people, and opinion-formers like journalists and civil society activists.

However, Aziz Azimov, a PR expert who has worked with parties on election issues, is less certain that new media can pull in significant numbers of votes. To win seatss in parliament, a party will need several hundred thousand voters, which is not feasible at present levels of internet access in Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan now has some two million web users, in a population of 5.5 million, according to the web development company Kazkontent. That still places it ahead of most of its regional neighbours.

Sergei Makarov of the Internet Policy Civic Initiative says the web has the dual advantages of being cheap to post material on and of not being regulated in the same way as conventional media.

“The internet is not officially classed as media, so politicians have an opportunity to place unlimited amounts of information there,” Makarov said, comparing the web with print media and television, where paid advertising is expensive.

Kyrgyzstan has so far avoided passing a law controlling the internet, as neighbouring Kazakstan has done.

Whatever the immediate impact on the upcoming election, some are predicting that social networking sites could foster longer-term changes in the way politics works. The internet could provide a forum for parties to build communities of supporters and voters early on, before some of them go on to become the country’s elite.

“Society is longing for change. More and more young people are going into politics,” political analyst Mars Sariev said. “I am certain that we’ll soon begin seeing the internet community exerting more of an influence on politics. If not during this election, then in the next.”

Asel, a university student, told IWPR she was excited to have an opportunity to communicate with politicians direct via the web.

“Now I can talk to them via Skype. In real life, they’re more pleasant than they are on TV,” she said, adding that this revelation had made her change her earlier decision not to vote.

Maxim, a young man in the capital Bishkek, described his surprise at receiving a message inviting him to become a Facebook friend of former city mayor Nariman Tyuleev. But he said he still was not going to vote.

Ilya Lukashov and Nuraiym Ryskulova are IWPR-trained journalists. Dina Tokbaeva is IWPR’s Kyrgyzstan editor.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.