November 14, 2025
Times of Central Asia - Kyrgyzstan Elections 2025: Short Campaign, High Stakes
Campaigning for seats in Kyrgyzstan’s upcoming parliamentary elections is underway, and it is already shaping up to be a race unlike anything seen before in Kyrgyzstan. The 467 candidates competing for the 90 seats in parliament have only 20 days to make their cases to voters in their districts. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s government has vowed to keep these elections clean and fair, and threatened severe punishment for those who attempt to cheat in any way.
Uneven Electoral Landscape
The country is divided into 30 voting districts, and in each district, the three candidates who receive the most votes will win seats.
The level of competition varies, depending on the district. Electoral district 11, which is Manas city (formerly Jalal-Abad), has 155,023 eligible voters. Only five candidates are running in the district, three of whom are women. According to new election rules, a woman (or a man) must win at least one of the three seats available in each district.
Name recognition is always important, and especially so in elections with many newcomers seeking seats in parliament. One of the candidates in District 11 is Shairbek Tashiyev, the brother of the current head of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB), Kamchybek Tashiyev. He is almost certain to win one of the seats.
In electoral district 19 in Kyrgyzstan’s northern Chuy Province, with 138,373 eligible voters, there are 25 candidates competing.
The two districts with the largest number of voters, district 15 in the Aksy area of western Kyrgyzstan with 160,218 voters, and district 28 in the Zhety-Oguz area of eastern Kyrgyzstan with 160,181 voters, have, respectively, 15 candidates and 17 candidates. In the districts where there are 15 or more candidates, the three winners might only receive around 10,000 votes, or even less.
The candidates are out meeting with voters, but many are relying on social networks to promote their image and spread their message. Domestic television stations, ElTR and UTRK, are airing candidate debates that “will be distributed regionally, depending on the candidates’ electoral districts.”
Read the full article on the Times of Central Asia.
Bruce Pannier is a Senior Fellow at the Turan Research Center.