Polls are under way in Kyrgyzstan’s snap parliamentary election, in which allies of President Sadyr Japarov are expected to win a resounding victory.
Sunday’s vote takes place with no formal parties or organised opposition, and it is set to cement Japarov’s power.
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A populist and nationalist, Japarov has since 2020 established firm control of Kyrgyzstan, which was traditionally Central Asia’s most democratic country.
Victory for his allies would set the stage for a presidential election due in 2027, when Japarov is expected to seek another term.
After Kyrgyzstan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the lively political life in the mountainous country of about 7 million was significant. In 2005, 2010 and 2020, Kyrgyz leaders were overthrown in street protests against elections that critics said were rigged, while Kyrgyz media was for decades the region’s freest.
But since coming to power on the back of the 2020 protests, Japarov has clamped down on the media and opposition groups.
An election had been due by November 2026, but parliament voted in September to dissolve itself for a snap election.
Edil Baisalov, Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prime minister and an ally of Japarov, said the president’s popularity was partly based on rejecting the turbulence of previous decades, which he said had not improved living standards or offered stability.
“The first 30 years we spent trying to copy,” he told the Reuters news agency. “We thought that we would adopt a Westminster-style parliamentary system and that we would live like Western countries. But it did not work, and it will not work.”
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Baisalov said the media crackdown, under which independent journalists have been designated “extremists”, was required to protect Kyrgyzstan from what he said were negative sentiments fanned by foreign social media platforms.
Bolot Ibragimov, an opposition candidate seeking election in the capital, Bishkek, said he expected about 80 percent of the parliament, which is dominated by allies of Japarov, to be re-elected.
Japarov, who has backed banning online pornography and the return of the death penalty, is also bolstered by strong economic growth, the fastest in Central Asia, even as high inflation and electricity shortages erode living standards.
Economic experts say much of the boom is the result of Kyrgyzstan, which is in a customs union with Russia, becoming a key clearinghouse for imports to Russia redirected by sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on several Kyrgyz banks and cryptocurrency companies, accusing them of facilitating Russian sanctions evasion.
In the run-up to the election, Japarov has embraced ties with Russia, which has military bases in Kyrgyzstan and where many Kyrgyz travel as migrant workers.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Bishkek for talks, and his face was displayed on billboards around the city.
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