Kyrgyzstan Sets Date for 2027 Presidential Election

When Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov was elected in a January 2021 snap presidential election, the Kyrgyz Constitution mandated a single six-year term -- meaning the next presidential election would come in early 2027.

But in April 2021, Japarov’s ambitious constitutional revision was adopted. Dubbed the “khanstitution” by critics, the new basic law of the land shifted Kyrgyzstan back to a powerful presidential system, abandoning, again, experiments with parliamentarism; it shrunk the parliament’s size from 120 to 90 seats and diminished its power. The new constitution also established an additional body, the national Kurultai, “a traditional people’s council with delegates from all regions of the country” that mirrored a parliament in some ways, although without voter input into the selection of members.

Under the new constitution, importantly, Kyrgyz presidents could serve two five-year terms -- thus bringing the likely next presidential election into 2026 and jump-starting chatter that Japarov aimed to stay in office.

Last month, at Japarov’s initiative, the parliament officially set the date for the next presidential election as January 24, 2027, instead of a previously set date of October 18, 2026. Japarov himself authored the bill – “On Amendments to the Constitutional Law of the Kyrgyz Republic ‘On Elections of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic and Deputies of the Zhogorku Kenesh of the Kyrgyz Republic’” – and it was passed in three readings at once.

As reported by Reuters, “This would ensure he serves the full six years of his mandate, which analysts said suggested he was thinking about extending his presidency.”

The first part of that sentence rests in the previous constitution – the one under which Japarov was elected – and the second part taps into the current constitution, the one that permits a second term.

It’s a grand Central Asian tradition to tinker with terms and constitutions, and cherry-pick the rules by which to play on any given day.

Islam Karimov, for 30 years the president of Uzbekistan, was a master at this game. In April 2015, following what would end up being his last re-election, I explained:

Karimov has sustained a staged version of democracy through a series of strategic constitutional changes and referendums by virtue of the fact that he holds absolute power in the country.

Karimov’s election history is telling in this regard. In 1990, Karimov first came into office as president of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. He then won handily Uzbekistan’s first election as an independent country in 1991. In 1996 he extended his term via referendum and was re-elected in 2000 to a seven-year term. He delayed the 2007 election by a technicality until December, and then won despite a two-term limit in the country’s constitution. The argument then was that his 1991 election did not count as one of his two “consecutive terms” because it was before the current constitution was put in place in 1992.

Last year, Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov said Japarov would take part in the next election.. “The constitution allows it, so he will not just abandon things halfway,” he said. “The people will not allow it either. The people have hope now. And in the next three years, they will witness significant achievements.”

Presidential spokesman Askat Alagozov commented that in light of the long-term, “strategically important” projects that the Japarov government had undertaken, “Japarov’s participation in the elections for a second term would be consistent with his policies.”

Political scientist Emil Juraev told Reuters after the recent re-settting of the election date, “[Japarov] hasn't said it himself yet, but both by law and by the state of affairs in the country, it would probably make sense for him to run for a second term. Some of his team have said he's expected to do this.”

But perhaps the question ought not be whether Japarov will seek a second term, but whether he considers his current term his “first.” Should he follow a Karimovesque logic, he could – theoretically – claim that his current term does not count because it occurred under a previous constitution. The arguments already set free into the ether by his proxies – that his administration is working on “long-term” and “strategic” projects and that Japarov has brought people “hope” – are exactly the arguments autocrats around the world make for extending their rule.

If there is any constant in Kyrgyz politics, however, it’s the impermanency of any specific president.

Kyrgyzstan’s first president, Askar Akayev, like Karimov was selected to be president of the Kirghiz Soviet Social Republic in 1990 and in 1991, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, won election. Akayev went on to be re-elected in 1995 and 2000. He was ousted amid rumors that he was setting his son up to take over the presidency; the 2005 parliamentary election – in which two of his children won seats – served as the catalyst for Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution.

Akayev’s successor, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, elected in 2005, lasted just five years before being ousted in the 2010 Revolution. Following the interim presidency of Roza Otunbayeva, Almazbek Atambayev was elected president in 2011.

Atambayev actually served his full, single, six-year term and then stepped down – a veritable milestone in Kyrgyz politics. But he’d promoted his political protege, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, to be his successor, arguably in hopes of pulling off a Medvedev-Putin-style tandemocracy. Between 2008 and 2012, Russia’s long-time leader Vladimir Putin had stepped down from the presidency – barred as he was by the constitution from serving a third consecutive term – and took on the prime minister role while Dmitry Medvedev served, officially, as president. In 2012, the two swapped roles again and Putin has been president ever since.

That gambit didn’t work out for Atambayev. His falling out with Jeenbekov undermined Kyrgyzstan’s fragile political stability and in October 2020, a parliamentary election once again served as the catalyst for a revolution.

Japarov, who had been serving a prison term since 2011, was busted from jail in early October 2020 and within two weeks was acting president. A few months later, he won a barely contested election. In the years since, his government has pursued populist policies that sate public desires for “strong” leadership – for example, nationalizing the country’s most lucrative gold mine and making headway on tricky border disputes, but only after a demonstration of state violence and a crackdown on dissidents. These policies have often come at the cost of eroding Kyrgyzstan’s democratic institutions, from the media to the non-profit sector to the judiciary.

That erosion very well may extend to the next election – now set for January 2027 – and onward to 2032 when we’ll see just which rules Japarov chooses to play by.