BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan’s ruling coalition broke down yesterday after two parties blamed the prime minister for failing to prepare for global economic turmoil.
The Ata Meken party joined its partner, Ar Namys, in withdrawing from the coalition in the volatile Central Asian country led for the past eight months by Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov.
“Kyrgyzstan’s economic growth has fallen sharply since Babanov became prime minister,” Ata Meken said in a statement, adding it was in “complete disagreement with Babanov’s policies as premier.”
The long-threatened decision, however, means current cabinet ministers can keep their posts on an interim basis until the formation of a new government, which may include a different premier.
No legislative elections will be required in the mountainous country of 5.5 million on the border with China — the only to have both a US and Russian military base.
Babanov had served under President Almazbek Atambayev since when the Kyrgz leader assumed office in December, after winning elections to replace the pro-Western leader Roza Otunbayeva.
An aide to the president said the constitution provided no time frame under which the new government must be formed.
“Neither does the law say that the task of forming a new alliance has to be handed to a different party,” presidential adviser Fardi Niyazov said.
The comments suggest Atambayev could ask the parties that quit to return to the fold.
Kyrgyzstan was hit by a wave of peaceful spring protests around the flashpoint southern city of Osh that witnessed a bloody uprising in April 2010.
That violence — much of it between ethnic Kyrgyz and the large ethnic Uzbek minority based in the region — brought in Otunbayeva’s reformist government. But a court prohibited Otunbayeva from running in 2011 presidential elections because she was never initially elected to her post.
The new head of state Atambayev has thus far tried to steer a cautious middle ground between Russia and the US on foreign policy issues.