Kyrgyzstan’s October Parliamentary Election Won’t Be Boring

This upcoming October, Kyrgyzstan is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections. Unlike the eminently predictable polls – whether parliamentary or presidential – held occasionally elsewhere in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections are a lesson in the sometimes unpredictable quicksands of a democracy.

Various political parties have risen and fallen in Kyrgyzstan’s nearly 30 years of independence. The country was also rocked twice within a decade by revolutions (2005 and 2010) that unseated the first two presidents. Over the past nearly 30 years, the nature of the Kyrgyz legislature has changed several times, evolving from a toothless bicameral legislature left over from the late Soviet period (60 seats in the upper house, 45 in the lower; 105 total), into a unicameral parliament (with 75 seats) by 2005, and then placed under a presidential system in 2007 (also increased to 90 seats) before transitioning to a more powerful, in theory, parliament inside the context of an official parliamentary democracy since 2010 (with 120 seats).

Over the years, the national and regional thresholds to enter parliament have also evolved, as Colleen Wood reviewed earlier this year while writing about ongoing debate on changing the thresholds, again:

In Kyrgyzstan, parties must pass a double threshold to gain seats in parliament: in addition to getting 0.7 percent of votes in each region, since 2017 parties need 9 percent of the national tally to make it to parliament. 

When Kyrgyzstan transitioned to a proportional electoral system in 2007, a referendum established a 5 percent threshold for parties to take seats in parliament. That threshold was raised to 7 percent after the 2010 revolution, and again to 9 percent in 2017.

This evolution of thresholds has also occurred in tandem with the growth of political parties. For example, in the 2000 parliamentary election, 90 seats out of 105 between the two chambers were single-seat constituencies; 15 were elected from party lists. It is no surprise then that after the counting was done, 73 seats were won by independents. The largest party to enter parliament was an alliance of smaller parties, only one of which has remained a relevant political player (though its fate is looking grim): the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK).

By 2007, the laws had changed. All seats are now allocated according to a proportional representation system with closed party lists in a single nationwide constituency – with the threshold requirements increased as noted above. There was no room in the new system for independent candidates, but Kyrgyzstan’s parties remain weak organizations in the grand scheme of politics.

Kyrgyzstan is beset by a host of political evils common around the world: the hijacking of democratic institutions by elite interests and the attendant corruption, most notably. But it has its own unique demons, too. Among those unique demons are the demonstrated combustibility of Kyrgyzstan’s parties, many of which are constructed more around personalities than ideology.

A case in point: After securing the presidency for a second time in the hands of a SDPK candidate in 2017 – while also holding the most parliamentary seats following the 2015 parliamentary poll (38) – the SDPK has irrevocably fractured.

At the core of the SDPK’s breakup is a feud between current President Sooronbay Jeenbekov and his immediate predecessor, and former patron, Almazbek Atambayev.

Atambayev served a single six-year presidential term from 2011 to 2017; he was elected in the wake of the second Kyrgyz revolution, in the spring of 2010. Before becoming president, Atambayev had been chair of the SDPK since 1999, with a few separate stints in the prime minister’s seat. (Note: Kyrgyzstan runs through prime ministers at a steady clip, roughly one per year over the last decade).

Atambayev, in the opinion of many observers of Kyrgyz politics, saw Jeenbekov – who had been his final prime minister – as his way to remain connected to power. Atambayev hoped to step down (and be applauded for doing something few Central Asian leaders ever do) but never intended to really step aside. Jeenbekov turned out to have his own ambitions, much to Atambayev’s chagrin. Their falling out split the SDPK between factions loyal to Atambayev (who returned to running the party until he stepped down in late May 2019) and those who envisioned an SDPK “without Atambayev” – that is now the official name of a faction, “SDPK Without Atambayev.” The party remains officially a single faction within parliament, but the edges are fraying as election day approaches.

One quirk of the Kyrgyz political system is that while presidential candidates are usually nominated and backed by parties, once an individual becomes president they can no longer be head or member of a party. This is for perception reasons: the president is supposed to represent all Kyrgyz. But the ideal rarely matches reality, as illustrated by the SDPK’s split.

Atambayev lost the power struggle, for now, to Jeenbekov. Parliament stripped him of presidential immunity and he ignored various state summons, leading to an attempt by the authorities to detain him last year. He and his followers resisted, throwing back a first raid on his compound outside the capital in early August 2019 – a member of the security services was killed during the botched raid. The authorities returned a second time and took Atambayev into custody, where he faced trial for a range of crimes from corruption to murder. In late June one of his two trials ended with a guilty verdict and an 11-year sentence in relation to the 2013 early release of a notorious criminal.

The SDPK, in addition to being one of the oldest parties in Kyrgyzstan, has seen its relevance soar in the last decade. After spearheading the 2010 revolution, head of the SDPK parliamentary faction Roza Otunbayeva became interim president; Atambayev succeeded her in 2011 (she never returned to the party or politics) and Jeenbekov followed him in 2017.

The party’s parliamentary faction grew from membership in an alliance that held 12 seats in the 2000 parliament to a single seat to itself in 2005 parliament and 11 seats in the 2007 body. In 2010, the SDPK snatched up 26 seats – the second-highest number – and in 2015 it secured the top number of seats, at 38. Given the 120-seat body, the SDPK has had to rule in a coalition government but with the most seats and, in a de facto sense, the presidency, no other party has come close to the SDPK’s level of power.

But it’s obvious now that Kyrgyzstan’s largest and most successful party faces a grave challenge come October.

While Atambayev’s trials move forward at an atrociously sluggish pace, the SDPK’s split has accelerated toward disintegration beyond the pro- and anti-Atambayev fracture. In late May, Irina Karamushkina, a member of the SDPK's political council and a deputy in parliament, posted on Facebook that Atambayev’s two sons – Seyitbek and Kadyr – would be leaving the SDPK and joining a new party: the Social Democrats of Kyrgyzstan (SDK).

From the ashes of the SDPK there are now apparently three entities: the SDPK, SDPK Without Atambayev, and the SDK.

In the current parliament, SDPK Without Atambayev appears to have a hold on the majority of the SDPK’s seats and its head, Sagynbek Addrahmanov, has said it would participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections. But given that it’s never stood on its own, it’s unclear how popular the faction will actually be. The SDPK is reportedly preparing for the October polls, too, but the Atambayev nonsense has damaged its appeal. The SDK looks like the last bastion of Atambayev’s most loyal supporters. Beyond squabbles last year over the party’s name (and the critical name recognition that goes with it), it’s unclear how any of these parties will differentiate themselves beyond the Atambayev question.

The party with the second largest number of seats in the current parliament – Respublika-Ata-Jurt, with 28 seats – was a 2014 merger in advance of the 2015 parliamentary election. The merger fell apart in November 2016. Though the parliamentary faction remained unified, the two parties – Respublika and Ata-Jurt – are planning to stand separately in the 2020 poll.

In early June, an array of parties appeared to form an alliance – Jany Dem (A New Breath) – ahead of the election, including some current and former pro-Atambayev members of the SDPK, Ata-Meken, Ak Shumkar (belonging to former presidential candidate and Prime Minister Temir Sariyev), the Liberal Democratic Party, the Jany Dem Youth Association, and the Green Alliance group. Ata-Meken currently holds 11 seats in parliament, the rest – beyond some individual SDPK members – hold none.

We’re a few months out from the election. The date has not been officially announced, but while some have suggested a delay given the pandemic most signs point to the October poll occurring as previously assumed early in the month. The sitting parliament is still debating a piece of legislation that would lower the national threshold to 7 percent again, and the field, with the SDPK actively imploding, is wide open in a way no one predicted back in 2017 when the party looked to be at the height of its power.

In Central Asia, where elections are always predictable, Kyrgyzstan stands out as the exception. But the unpredictable nature of Kyrgyz politics, and the immature nature of parties, contributes to a persistent state of low-level political instability (and anxiety), which hamstrings efforts to grow deep roots for Kyrgyz democracy.