Op-Ed: As dust settles from Kyrgyzstan’s election under new constitution, what next?

While the final results have yet to be released, the shape of Kyrgyzstan’s new parliament has become more clear a week after the vote. With it, Kyrgyzstan marks the end of a political transition triggered after October 2020’s parliamentary election set off protests. President Sadyr Japarov sits at the top of a government transformed by referendum into a powerful presidential system... [...] According to the latest tabulations, six parties will enter the parliament, splitting 54 seats among them [...] Most of the parties are new, with Butun Kyrgyzstan the only one analysts characterize as opposition. [...] The remaining 36 seats in the parliament will be filled by individual candidates elected in single-mandate races tied to geographic constituencies. [...] It’s hard, at this juncture, to predict how the new Kyrgyz parliament will behave. Under the new constitution, its powers are diminished but it may nevertheless present an arena for discussion. What isn’t so difficult is outlining the challenges facing Japarov and his government, most prominently the coming winter, but also the pandemic, the economy, and occasionally tense relations with neighboring Tajikistan.
Read the full article here: The Diplomat