Kyrgyzstan cabinet loses confidence vote
BISHKEK – Reuters
Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to express no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Sapar Isakov on April 19 amid an apparent power struggle between the president and a leader of the ruling party.
The Central Asian nation of six million, which hosts a Russian military base, has been volatile since gaining independence in 1991, with political conflicts erupting into violent revolutions in 2005 and 2010.
The final decision after the April 19 vote, according to constitution, is the hands of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov who can either sack the government or overrule parliament and let the cabinet stay.
Sacking Isakov would complete a series of reshuffles that Jeenbekov began shortly after coming to power last November, removing the appointees of his predecessor Almazbek Atambayev from state security and the prosecutor general’s office.
Atambayev, who now chairs the Social Democratic party, the leader of a ruling parliamentary coalition, had backed Jeenbekov in the presidential election but started criticising him this month in a sign of a rift between the two.
