Kyrgyzstan Adopts Majoritarian Representation System for Parliamentary Elections

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov signed a bill into law on Monday to adopt a majoritarian representation system for parliamentary elections, the presidential press service announced.

"Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has signed into law amendments to the constitutional law On Elections of the President and Jogorku Kenesh [Supreme Council] Deputies in the Kyrgyz Republic," it said, The Caspian Post reports citing Interfax.

The legislation is aimed at enhancing the parliamentary election procedure, countering political corruption, eradicating the flaws of the previous electoral system, and improving the people's confidence in the legislators, it said.

The law stipulates that, for holding a parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan, 30 multi-mandate territorial electoral districts shall be established with three parliamentarians to be elected from each of these.

It says that remote electronic voting can be used during elections. A decision on applying remote electronic voting shall be made while calling an election.

Parliamentary candidates in multi-mandate territorial electoral districts can be nominated by political parties or self-nominated by private individuals.

To save pubic funds, no parliamentary elections will be held in multi-mandate electoral districts to replace the lawmakers no longer performing their duties.

A group of Kyrgyz parliamentarians led by Speaker Nurlanbek Turgunbek Uulu earlier proposed changing the parliamentary electoral system, under which all lawmakers would be elected based on the majoritarian representation principle. Until lately, 54 lawmakers were elected based on party tickets and the other 36 in single-mandate electoral districts.

The Kyrgyz parliament passed the legislation on April 30.