MOSCOW – After more than a week in secret after a controversial election, the president of Kyrgyzstan – Central Asia’s only democracy – announced his plans to resign on Thursday, saying he did not want to go down in history as a leader who spilled blood and of his own Citizens shot. “
In a statement made from an undisclosed location, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov said he had “made a decision to resign” despite not saying whether he had already resigned.
Mr Jeenbekov disappeared from view after protesters, angry at the October 4th parliamentary election marred by widespread vote buying, stormed the president’s office and other government buildings in the capital, Bishkek. It was rumored that he had sought refuge at a Russian military airfield in the city of Kant, about 19 km from Bishkek, but his exact whereabouts remained unclear.
His departure marks the third time in 15 years that violent protests have overthrown a president of Kyrgyzstan, the only country in the region with a vibrant civil society, relatively free press and regular competitive elections for parliament and the presidency.
With the president apparently out of the way, his role as head of state – and commander-in-chief of the armed forces – is being taken over by the speaker of parliament, who has also come under increasing pressure to resign.
In a formally parliamentary democracy, however, the government of Kyrgyzstan falls to Sadyr Japarov, a convicted kidnapper who was released from prison by anti-government protesters last week. He was named Prime Minister on Saturday by lawmakers who gathered for an unusual and, as his opponents say, illegal session without quorum at the official residence of the President.
Announcing his resignation, President Jeenbekov, who last week ordered troops into the capital to restore order, urged Japaraov and rival politicians to “withdraw their supporters from the capital and restore a peaceful life to the people of Bishkek”.
Hundreds of protesters, some of them supporters of Mr Japarov, but also a group of men who observers in Bishkek described as paid thugs linked to criminal groups, gathered outside the official residence of the President on Thursday morning demanding Mr Jeenbekov to give up the presidency.
A group of Japarov’s supporters, mostly young men, clashed violently with supporters of another budding prime minister last week. Since that confrontation, there have been growing fears that if the President did not resign, Mr Japarov, who was criticized by his critics as a mere nationalist agitator, would re-mobilize his supporters.
Mr Jeenbekov, elected in 2017, had announced that he would resign as soon as the calm returned to the capital, which has been free of the turbulence that engulfed it last week for the past few days.
Mr Japarov, the new Prime Minister, has long insisted that his 2017 conviction for organizing the kidnapping of a regional governor in a country where each new government has frequently imprisoned members of previous and rival politicians was politically motivated. Mr Jeenbekov had his presidential predecessor, Almazbek Atambayev, arrested and imprisoned on corruption charges shortly after he took office.
Mr. Atambayev, who was serving an 11-year prison sentence, was among those released from prison last week with Mr. Japarov, the new Prime Minister. He was arrested again on Saturday.
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