Azerbaijanis running for Kyrgyz parliament fail to gather votes

"The parties from which the Azerbaijanis were nominated could not pass the 5% threshold," the Adviser to the Azerbaijani Embassy in Kyrgyzstan Ilgar Jabbarov told Trend.

Five Azerbaijanis put forward their candidacies from five political parties in order to attend the parliamentary election held Oct.10 in Kyrgyzstan. They are: Akif Alaferdiev (the Azerbaijani Diaspora chairman), Arif Alaferdiev (lawyer), Vladimir Abulgasimov (Bishkek mayor assistant), Farhad Aliyev (student) and Leyla Hajiyeva (employee of the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan), Jabbarov told Trend.

According to the election rules, seats will be distributed proportionately to parties passing the 5-percent threshold nationwide.

According to statistics about 20,000 Azerbaijani live in Kygryzstan. Presently, in Kyrgyzstan 91% of votes in Sunday's election were counted. The list was topped by the Ata-Zhurt party with 8.65% of the votes. The Social Democratic Party with 8.05% of the votes ranked second. They are followed by the former Prime Minister Felix Kulov's the Ar-Namys Party with 7.22% of votes and the Respublika party with 7.05%, as well as the pro-governmental Ata-Meken party with 5.88%.

In fact, all these parties ensured their seats in the Parliament. The "Butun Kyrgyzstan" Party ("United Kyrgyzstan") has a theoretical chance to run after the leaders. The party collected 4.73% of votes. To pass the 5% threshold the party should collect about 20,000 votes, ITAR-TASS reports.

Voter turnout in the Kyrgyz parliamentary elections hit 56.5% from 2.85 million registered voters. A total of 29 political parties are competing for 120 seats in the new government.


/Trend/