Presidential elections were held in Kyrgyzstan on 15 October 2017.[1] Incumbent President Almazbek Atambayev was not allowed to run again because the constitution sets a single six-year term for the head of state.[2] Eleven candidates registered for the race, and from this field Sooronbay Jeenbekov of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan won more than 50% of the vote, avoiding a runoff.[3] Following certification of the results on 30 October,[4] Jeenbekov was inaugurated as President of Kyrgyzstan on 24 November.[5] The election, though not without flaws, was Central Asia’s first ever truly competitive election.[6]
Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, and also known as Kirghizia, is a country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country with mountainous terrain. It is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.
Almazbek Sharshenovich Atambayev is a Kyrgyz politician who served as the President of Kyrgyzstan from 1 December 2011 to 24 November 2017. He was Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan from 17 December 2010 to 1 December 2011, and from 29 March 2007 to 28 November 2007. He served as Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) from 30 July 1999 to 23 September 2011.
Sooronbay Sharipovich Jeenbekov is a Kyrgyz politician, and the President of Kyrgyzstan. He officially took office on 24 November 2017. He was also the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan from April 2016 to August 2017.
The election was originally scheduled for the third Sunday in November (19 November 2017), but since Atambayev's term was set to expire on 1 December, opposition lawmakers in the Supreme Council demanded that the date be brought forward, so that there would be room for a second round of voting and the inauguration ceremony before 1 December, as to prevent a conflict of law. Atambayev announced on 29 May 2017 that the election will be held on 15 October.[7]
The Supreme Council is the unicameral Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic. It has 120 seats with members elected for a five-year term by party-list proportional voting.
In December 2016, a referendum was held on strengthening the power of the Prime Minister and was approved by 80% of voters.
The Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan is the head of government of Kyrgyzstan. Until 2010, the President was in a stronger position than the Prime Minister in Kyrgyzstan, but after the 2010 constitutional referendum, the state transitioned to a parliamentary system, placing greater power in parliament and the cabinet at the expense of the president.
A total of 773 international monitors from 59 countries and 44 international organisations were registered to observe the election,[8] which was noted for its uniqueness in the Central Asia region: firstly, it marked the first change of a president that was not the result of a death or a revolution, and secondly, the results of the election were not known beforehand.[9][10]
In early August 2017, the leaders of three opposition parties – Onuguu–Progress, Butun Kyrgyzstan, and Respublika–Ata Zhurt – announced the creation of a coalition called Kaira Zharaluu (Revival), which was to field a single candidate – Bakyt Torobayev.[11] This agreement fell through, with each leader registering separately to participate in the election. Going into the election, Temir Sariyev, Ömürbek Babanov, and Sooronbay Jeenbekov, all former prime ministers, were considered to be the leading candidates.[12]
Önügüü–Progress is a political party in Kyrgyzstan led by Bakyt Torobayev.
ButunKyrgyzstan is a Kyrgyz political party that was founded in 2010. The party is led by Adakhan Madumarov, who unsuccessfully ran for president of Kyrgyzstan in 2011 and 2017, coming second and third, respectively. It has a right wing, ethnonationalist ideology. As of 2017 the party has never held any seats in the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan.
Respublika–Ata Zhurt is a Kyrgyz political party that was created after the merger of the Respublika and Ata-Zhurt parties in 2014.
Nursultan Äbishuly Nazarbayev is a Kazakh politician who is currently the Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan who served as the first President of Kazakhstan, in office from 24 April 1990 until his resignation on 19 March 2019. He was named First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR in 1989 and was elected as the nation's first president following its independence from the Soviet Union. He holds the title "Leader of the Nation". In April 2015, Nazarbayev was re-elected with almost 98% of the vote, as he ran "virtually unopposed".
Ömürbek Toktogulovich Babanov is a Kyrgyz politician who was Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan from 1 December 2011 to 1 September 2012. Before his appointment as Prime Minister, he was Deputy Prime Minister in the Government of Almazbek Atambayev. He was also acting Prime Minister from 23 September 2011 until 14 November 2011, as the Prime Minister Atambayev was a candidate in the presidential election. He again became acting Prime Minister on 1 December 2011 when Atambayev took office as President. He was confirmed by Parliament on 23 December 2011. On 1 September 2012 Babanov resigned as Prime Minister.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the Kyrgyz government ministry which oversees the foreign relations of Kyrgyzstan.
Electoral system
The President of Kyrgyzstan is elected using the two-round system.[14] None of the presidential elections held since Kyrgyzstan gained its independence from the Soviet Union have gone into a second round.[15] Under the 2010 constitution, the presidential term is six years. Re-election is not permitted.[16]
Prior to the election, 2,973,525 Kyrgyz citizens were eligible to vote.[17] This figure was later revised upwards to 3,025,770. Of those, 22,281 were eligible to vote one day early, on 14 October, because they were in hospital or incarcerated, unable to visit polling stations due to poor health, or lived in remote regions.[18]
Registered candidates
Originally 13 people were registered to participate in the election and listed on the ballot papers.
However, following registration a number of candidates withdrew.
Kamchybek Tashiev decided to withdraw in favour of Sooronbay Jeenbekov on 25 September.[19][20] On 17 September, Bakyt Torobayev formed an alliance with Ömürbek Babanov and agreed that should Babanov win, he would become prime minister.[21] Yet on 6 October, Torobayev announced his withdrawal from the race.[22] On 13 October, Azimbek Beknazarov bowed out of the race.[23] All three of the above remained on the ballot because they withdrew after the ballot papers had been finalised and printed.
The remaining 10 people, most of which are independents, were officially registered as candidates and participated in the election:[24][12]
In order to register as an official candidate, one had to be nominated by a political party or complete the relevant documentation for running as an independent, pay a deposit of 1 million soms, collect signatures from 30,000 registered voters and pass an exam certifying above-average proficiency in the Kyrgyz language.[27] The CEC accepted signatures until the end of 25 August 2017,[28] and registered candidates until 10 September.
A total of 59[29] people initially declared their intention to run for the presidency; 48 self-nominees and 11 nominated by political parties. The Central Election Commission announced on 16 August 2017 that the number of applicants had dropped to 50.[30] One high-profile potential candidate, opposition leader Omurbek Tekebaev, was convicted on corruption and fraud charges on 16 August 2017,[31] and as such could not run for president. On the next day the Central Election Commission invalidated the list of signatures presented by Tekebaev because he violated financing rules.[32]
On 26 August, the CEC reported that 24 people had submitted the required amount of signatures.[33] Meanwhile, 15 people had failed to provide any signatures and five people had failed the required Kyrgyz language test in addition to not providing signatures.[34]
By 10 September – the end of the registration period – the CEC had rejected a total of 37 people and nine had withdrawn.[35] The remaining 13 were officially registered as participants in the election.
The 11 candidates nominated by political parties, both major and minor, were:[36]
Bakyt Torobayev, leader of Onuguu–Progress (Development and Progress)
Jeenbekov resigned as Prime Minister on 21 August 2017, after being named as an official candidate. He stated that he "[wanted] to be in an equal position with other presidential candidates".[37] The incumbent, Atambayev, has been criticised by opponents for using his position to promote the candidacy of Jeenbekov, a longtime ally.[38]
Six of the eleven—Akimov, Asanbekov, Isaev, Keldibekov, Masaliev, and Tursunbek—were rejected by the CEC[39] for not collecting enough valid signatures from voters. The remaining five were officially registered in the presidential race. One of them, Kamchybek Tashiev, later withdrew from the race.
Establishment candidate Sooronbay Jeenbekov won the election with more than 50% of the vote.[40] Final results were released within three days of the election.[41] As the results were not disputed, Jeenbekov was inaugurated on 24 November. Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe gave a "generally positive" report of the election's fairness, but made note of concerns over "misuse of public resources, pressure on voters and vote buying",[3] as well as media bias and the arrest of opposition leader Omurbek Tekebayev and some of Babanov’s supporters before the vote.[6]
The President of Kyrgyzstan is the head of state and the highest official of the Kyrgyz Republic. The president, according to the constitution, "is the symbol of the unity of people and state power, and is the guarantor of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic, and of an individual and citizen." The president is directly elected for no more than one six-year term by the Kyrgyz electorate. The office of president was established in 1990 replacing the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet that existed, in different forms, from 1927 whilst the country was known as the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan is a political party in Kyrgyzstan. Members formed the party on 1 October 1993, but did not register with the Justice Ministry until 16 December 1994. Abdygany Erkebaev served as the party's first chairman. Almazbek Atambayev replaced him on 30 July 1999. The majority of the party's membership is drawn from the country's entrepreneurs.
Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan relations refers to the bilateral diplomatic relations between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Uzbekistan dominates southern Kyrgyzstan both economically and politically, based on the large Uzbek population in that region of Kyrgyzstan and on economic and geographic conditions. Much of Kyrgyzstan depends entirely on Uzbekistan for natural gas; on several occasions, Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov has achieved political ends by shutting pipelines or by adjusting terms of delivery. In a number of television appearances broadcast in the Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces of Kyrgyzstan, Karimov has addressed Akayev with considerable condescension; Akayev, in turn, has been highly deferential to his much stronger neighbor. Although Uzbekistan has not shown overt expansionist tendencies, the Kyrgyz government is acutely aware of the implications of Karimov's assertions that he is responsible for the well-being of all Uzbeks, regardless of their nation of residence. The Kyrgyz deposed President said in an interview "It is like we are heroin addicts but instead of heroin its energy we are addicted to-but not addicted as such, we just need it like everybody else does, so in fact heroin makes a bad comparison but I will stick with it- anyway its like Uzbekistan is our dealer, this is where the comparison is good, because heroin dealers are nasty and so is Uzbekistan, they play games, they get us to sell our bodies for the heroin, our bodies being bread, land and labor. Like a pimp they do not give us a fair deal though and thus we are exploited. The situation is clear when one considers it in these terms."
Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan relations refers to the bilateral diplomatic relations between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Bilateral relationships between the countries are very strong and Kyrgyz and Kazakh are very close in terms of language, culture and religion. Kyrgyz-Kazakh relationships have always been at very high level and economic and other formal unification of two countries have been greeted with strong appreciation by both nations since the two share a lot in common. On April 26, 2007 the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement to create an "International Supreme Council" between the two states. This historic event took place during an official visit of the Kazakh president to the Kyrgyzstan capital, Bishkek. Kazakhstan’s direct investment in the Kyrgyz economy has been rapidly gaining pace since the early 2000s. Today Kazakhstan’s economic presence is felt throughout northern Kyrgyzstan, from banks to small businesses, cars with Kazakh plates and numerous tourists. For the most, the Kyrgyz are welcoming these trends as both countries share a similar culture and traditions. During the last five years Kazakhstan invested about 400 million dollars in Kyrgyzstan and is considered the largest investor. Thirty-three percent of the total Kyrgyzstan bank's equity belongs to Kazakh investors. There are about 2,000 enterprises functioning in Kyrgyzstan, and 500 belong to Kazakh entrepreneurs. Kazakh-Kyrgyz unification is in the economic interests of both countries. "I do not see any problem in unification with another country. In the future we should unite with this or another state, anyway. Unification with Kazakhstan will be a good accelerator for our economic development," said lawmaker Juraev.
A presidential election was held in Kyrgyzstan on 23 July 2009. The date was set after the constitutional court ruled that the extension of the presidential term from four to five years did not apply until the next presidential election, calling for elections by 25 October 2009; in response, a parliament committee proposed the July election date, which was then passed by the incumbent president Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak Jol-dominated parliament. Bakiyev had previously announced his intention to run for reelection. Bakiyev was re-nominated on 1 May 2009.
Temir Agrembaevich Sariyev is a Kyrgyz politician who was Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan from 2015 to 2016. He was a presidential candidate for the 2009 elections, receiving 157,005 (6.74%) votes. Sariyev is candidate in the country's 2017 presidential elections, in which he garnered 2.54% of the vote and came in fourth place.
Early presidential elections were held in Kyrgyzstan on 30 October 2011 to replace Interim President Roza Otunbayeva. Former Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan won in the first round.
Zhantoro Zholdoshevich Satybaldiyev is a Kyrgyz politician who was Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan from September 2012 until March 2014.
Events from the year 2017 in Kyrgyzstan
Asanbek Alymkozhoev is the former Chief of General Staff of Armed Forces of the Kyrgyz Republic. He was also the commander of the National Guard of Kyrgyzstan from 2006 to 2009.
Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev is a Kyrgyz politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan since 20 April 2018.
Bakyt Ergeshevich Torobayev is a Kyrgyz politician, and has been the leader of the Onuguu-Progress party since 2013.
Sapar Jumakadyrovich Isakov is a Kyrgyz politician who was Prime Minister from 26 August 2017 to 19 April 2018. Previously he was chief of staff for President Almazbek Atambayev. On 19 April 2018 the President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov fired Isakov and the government following a vote of no confidence, which was initiated by three factions in the country's parliament. The vote was launched due to dissatisfaction with the government's performance in 2017, namely, poor administration of the national budget, bad preparation for the heating season, and a lack of state supervision when upgrading Bishkek Thermal Power Station. Isakov was arrested June 5, 2018, he is facing corruption charges stemming from the Bishkek Thermal Power Station fiasco. The Chinese company Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd. and Kyrgyz politicians including Isakov are accused of criminal corruption and illegal diversion of funds.
Rayimberdi Seydakmatovich Duishenbiev is a Kyrgyzstani General and the current Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Kyrgyz Republic since May 11, 2016.He is also the former commander of the Kyrgyzstan Frontier Force.
The Inauguration of Sooronbay Jeenbekov as the President of Kyrgyzstan took place on November 24, 2017, in the Enesay reception house of the Ala Archa State Residence in Bishkek. The inauguration was declared the first peaceful transnation of power in Kyrgyzstan in its 26 year history by foreign analyst.
The Ala Archa State Residence is an official presidential residence in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It is the current official home of the President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbay Jeenbekov. Many summits that take place in Bishkek have taken place in the residence such as the CIS summit of 2008.
Chingiz Aidarbekov is a Kyrgyz diplomat who is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, serving in the position since October 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
