Pro-presidential parties dominate Kyrgyzstan parliamentary vote

Parties close to Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbay Jeenbekov have dominated a parliamentary election, according to preliminary data, though the figures were disputed by several opposition parties. Results based on 95 percent of ballots cast on Sunday showed the Birimdik party of Jeenbekov’s younger brother, Asylbek Jeenbekov, and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party associated with the powerful Matraimov family – a presumed ally of the president – each getting roughly 24 percent of the vote. A third pro-presidential party, the Kyrgyzstan Party, scored 9 percent of the votes according to the preliminary count released by the Central Election Commission, while a nationalist party, Butun Kyrgyzstan, just edged past the 7 percent threshold required for entry, Another nationalist party, Mekenchil, looked set to miss out narrowly with 6.9 percent, leaving four parties in Parliament. But three parties that failed to clear the threshold denounced the results on Sunday evening, with two of them staging a brief protest on the central square of the capital, Bishkek, which they said would continue on Monday. Speaking after the vote, Janar Akayev, nominal leader of Ata-Meken, said the party considered the vote illegitimate and would join other parties in opposing the results “with radical methods”. His colleague Tilek Toktogaziyev called the trio of vote-topping parties a “three-headed dragon”. “We the Social Democrats political party state that we have received evidence of hundreds of mass violations during the electoral process,” said a splinter group of the former governing coalition. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">