Women Are Already Nearly a Third of the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan

Despite tradition women hold many of the highest positions in Kyrgyzstan. This was said today by Ex-President of the Kyrgyz Republic Roza Otunbayeva during a live videoconference with Kiev, organized by the Institute of World Politics, according to UNN’s correspondent. 

“For now I remain the only female president in Central Asia. You in Ukraine live in Europe, but Central Asia, as you know, is of an entirely different order. In this regard, women have had many historical disadvantages. But I can tell you with a certain sense of pride that, against this backdrop, I nominated some women for prominent roles. Imagine, in Kyrgyzstan today our General Prosecutor is a woman, our Chair of the National Bank is a woman, our Chief Justice is a women, our the Chairman of the Auditing Chamber is a woman, our Minister of Finance, Minister of Health, a Vice Prime Minister, and a Governor are also women. 90% of whom I nominated myself. Their nominations were approved by Parliament and they are still working today,” Otunbayeva said. 

Additionally, according to her, 23% of the mandatory quorum for a session of the Kyrgyzstani Parliament are women. 

“In my opinion, these are the seeds of democracy and everything else. And the men have made their peace with this, because we have had to clean up everything in the country. Where it was necessary to control money and legitimacy, we placed women,” Otunbayeva said. 

Roza Otunbayeva was one of the leaders of the Tulip Revolution of 2005 and the April 2010 revolution in Kyrgyzstan. As a result of the latter, Otunbayeva led the Interim Government and served as the nation’s President after the resignation of Kurmanbek Bakiev and before the election of the current President, Almazbek Atambaev. 

Earlier Otunbayeva held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and was leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan. 

Source: UNN