The rapid downfall of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek...
and Centrazia.ru was limited. The usual BBC evening broadcast disappeared from the government television network at the same time. As a result, rumors began to mount.The regime also blocked their recourse to parliament, an important channel for expressing public discontent. In 2007, Bakiyev announced his intention to establish a ruling party in the republic. At the elections on December 16, 2007, this ruling party, Ak Zhol, took 74 mandates out of 90, but, as it now transpires, not without the help from the election commissions. The remaining 16 votes were split by the communists and social democrats (the Kyrgyz counterparts of the Russian Communist Party and A Just Russia). The popular Ata-Meken party led by former Speaker Omurbek Tekebayev did not receive a single vote.
Unable to find any release in legal political struggle, discontent accumulated like powder in a powder keg. Little surprise, then, that it reached a critical mass and exploded.