4 yıl önce

Kyrgyz president says he will ask parliament to vote again on PM

The move could be a formality but, if the vote to elect Sadyr Japarov as Prime Minister of Kyrgyztan fails, it could further deepen the political crisis in a strategically located country.

AFP

Lawmakers vote on the candidature of Sadyr Japarov for the post of prime minister in Bishkek on October 10, 2020.

Kyrgyzstan's president has said that he would ask parliament to vote again on the man it has nominated as prime minister after both held talks with a senior official from key ally Russia following unrest in the Central Asian state.

President Sooronbay Jeenbekov's office gave no details of the talks with Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin administration, but said he had visited Kyrgyzstan on Monday.

Sadyr Japarov, a nationalist politician who has been named prime minister by parliament but has not yet been confirmed in office by Jeenbekov, also attended the meeting, it said.

Opposition to PM elect

Kyrgyzstan's parliament voted last week to name Japarov as prime minister after he was freed from prison by supporters during the unrest, but he cannot take office until Jeenbekov has confirmed his appointment.

In a separate statement, Jeenbekov's office said he had met Japarov one-on-one and told him he would ask parliament to vote again after some parliamentary deputies and activists criticised Saturday's decision as illegal because of proxy voting by some deputies.

Japarov had been serving a jail term for hostage-taking until early Tuesday last week.

Immediately after his election as acting PM, Japarov said he expected the embattled president to resign "in two to three days."

Ignoring lawmakers contesting his legitimacy, Japarov signed an order on Sunday appointing a new interior minister, Ulan Niyazbekov, after the previous police chief resigned in the wake of unrest over last week's contested election.

Close ties with Russia

Kyrgyzstan hosts a Russian military air base and has close economic ties with Moscow, which dominated the former Soviet republic of 6.5 million for decades.

Moscow described the situation in Kyrgyzstan as a mess and chaos after street protests broke out over a parliamentary election on October 4 which handed victory to two establishment parties, one of them closely allied with Jeenbekov.

Jeenbekov has halted the protests and clashes by declaring a state of emergency and deploying troops in the capital, Bishkek. But the government has been toppled and the president said last week he was ready to resign once a new prime minister was named.

One person was killed and more than 1,000 were injured in clashes with police and between rival factions as the central government all but lost control.

Parliament tried to convene again on Tuesday but was yet to open its session at 1130GMT and it was unclear whether it would assemble a 61-person quorum.