Kyrgyz parties agree to form coalition government

Kyrgyz parties agree to form coalition government

2010-12-01 00:37:59 GMT+7 (ICT)

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN (BNO NEWS) -- Three parties of Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday agreed on forming a coalition government following October's election, media reports say.

The three parties involved in the coalition are the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, Respublika party and Ata-Meken party. In the October’s parliamentary election the parties came second, fourth and fifth respectively.

Overall, five parties won seats in October's election. The opposition nationalist party Ata Zhurt got most of the votes but still failed to win a majority. The third-placed Ar-Namys party refused to join the coalition.

The parliamentary election was the first held in the Central Asian country since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was demoted following a mass uprising last April. The people of Kyrgyzstan voted to increase the powers of the parliament in June.

That vote came mere weeks after nearly 400 people were killed after inter-ethnic violence arose in the southern areas of Kyrgyzstan. Most of the individuals killed were minority Uzbeks.

Bakiyev was accused of ordering the assassination of 85 opposition protesters during a rally in Bishkek on April 7. The former president is currently living in Belarus.

The deadly confrontations affected nearly half a million people, displaced about 400,000 and many more fled to Uzbekistan.

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