Kyrgyzstan’s governing parliamentary coalition broke up on Wednesday after two factions quit the four-party pact, the AKIpress news agency said.
Coalition head Kanatbek Isayev announced the break-up of the coalition and said that under the coalition agreement, the government must resign immediately.
But a spokesman for Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov said the announcement of the coalition break-up was illegitimate.
“The coalition agreement clearly states that the ruling coalition can be led only by the leader of a member faction. As Kanat Isayev is not the leader of the Respublika faction anymore, he can not lead the parliamentary majority. Kanat Isayev’s statement thus cannot be viewed as an official statement about the coalition losing its parliamentary majority status,” Sultan Kanazarov said.
Kyrgyzstan is a parliamentary republic, de facto led by a prime minister appointed by the majority coalition in the country’s parliament. The coalition also forms the cabinet.
Five political parties made it into the parliament during the 2010 elections and four of them - the Social Democratic Party, Ata-Meken, Respublika and Ar-Namys have formed a governing coalition.
Ar-Namys left the coalition on Tuesday. The Ata-Meken party announced its withdrawal from the ruling coalition on Wednesday, causing the coalition to lose its majority in the 120-seat parliament.
Ata-Meken said Babanov should also quit as acting prime minister.
"We, members of the Ata-Meken faction, have to declare our disagreement in principle with the policies of Babanov as the head of the government. We are also convinced that Babanov should not remain the acting prime minister of the republic and should waive his temporary powers immediately,” the party said in a statement.
