KYRGYZ ELECTION: PROFILES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BISHKEK 000715

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/CEN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM KG
SUBJECT: KYRGYZ ELECTION: PROFILES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Ref: A. Bishkek 682

B. Bishkek 668

C. Bishkek 662

D. Bishkek 651

BISHKEK 00000715 001.2 OF 003



1. (U) On June 18, the official campaign period began for the July
23 Kyrgyz presidential election. There are six registered
candidates: incumbent President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, opposition
politicians Almazbek Atambayev and Temir Sariyev, well-known
psychiatrist Jenishbek Nazaraliyev, NGO leader Toktoayim Umetalieva,
and political activist Nurlan Motuyev. Following are brief profiles
of the candidates.

Kurmanbek Bakiyev
--------------


2. (SBU) Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the current President of the Kyrgyz
Republic, was born in 1949 in Masadan village in southern Jalalabad
Oblast. His father served as an NKVD officer, and he has six
brothers. (Note: The NKVD was a predecessor of the KGB. End
note.) One brother is deceased, but the other five are all engaged
in the political and economic life of the country. They include:
Janysh, the chief of the Presidential Protective Service; Marat, the
ambassador to Germany; Adyl, a high-level official in the Foreign
Ministry; Kanybek, a local elected official in Jalalabad Oblast; and
Akmat, a businessman in Jalalabad Oblast. Jusup, who was closely
involved in the "Tulip Revolution" of March 2005, died in 2006.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev is married to Tatyana Bakiyeva, an ethnic Russian,
and they have two children, Marat and Maxim. Marat Bakiyev is a
senior official in the State Committee on National Security, and is
much less prominent than his younger brother Maxim, who is a
businessman. Bakiyev is rumored to have a second, ethnic Kyrgyz
wife, with whom he also has children.


3. (SBU) Bakiyev graduated from Kuibyshev Polytechnic Institute
with a degree in engineering in 1978. During the Soviet Union he
primarily served as a manager and engineer in the electrical
industry. In the early 1990s, he moved into politics, and became
the head of a local communist party branch. Bakiyev moved up the
political ranks under President Akayev, eventually becoming Prime
Minister in 2000. In March 2002, Bakiyev resigned after police
brutally suppressed a protest rally in Aksy, Jalalabad Oblast.
Following his resignation, he served as a Member of Parliament and
became a leader in opposition politics. After President Akayev fled
the country in the face of mass protests in March 2005, Bakiyev was
selected as Acting President, and then went on to run for President
in tandem with Felix Kulov in July 2005, winning 89 percent of the
vote. The first years of Bakiyev's administration were turbulent,
with frequent street protests and ongoing political battles with
other opposition leaders. But Bakiyev consolidated his power with a
Constitutional referendum and Parliamentary elections in late 2007,
and since then, has faced no serious challenges to his power. On
May 1, Bakiyev's political party Ak Jol nominated him for a second
term.

Almazbek Atambayev
--------------


4. (SBU) Almazbek Atambayev was born in 1956 in Chui province. He
graduated from the Moscow Academy of Management in 1980 with degrees
in engineering and economics. He worked as an engineer and
Communist Party functionary until the late 1980s, when he set up a
private light manufacturing firm that has provided the financial
backing for his political career. He founded the Social Democrat
Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) in 1993, and represented that party in
Parliament from 1995 to 2000. In March 2005, Atambayev and his
party actively participated in the nationwide protests that brought
down President Akayev. He initially declared his candidacy for the
Presidency, but later pulled out of the race to endorse the
Bakiyev-Kulov tandem.


5. (SBU) After Bakiyev's victory, Atambayev joined the cabinet as

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the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, but he resigned in
protest in April 2006. He subsequently joined the opposition,
publicly demanding constitutional reform and Bakiyev's resignation.
Following several months of street protests, in March 2007 Atambayev
agreed to serve as Bakiyev's Prime Minister, which many in the
opposition saw as a defection. Atambayev was dismissed as Prime
Minister in late November 2007. On April 25, 2009 Atambayev was
chosen as the candidate of the United People's Movement (UPM),an
alliance of opposition parties. He is married and has six children.


Temir Sariyev
--------------


6. (SBU) Temir Sariyev was born in 1963 in Chui Oblast, and
graduated from the Kyrgyz National University with a degree in
economics. During the Soviet Union, he was a party functionary, and
in the early 1990s, he started Central Asia's first commodities
exchange. He is now a part owner of a company that sells electrical
equipment, as well as a shareholder in a consulting and design
company. The income from these investments has supported his
political career. Sariyev served in Parliament from 2000 to 2007,
and in 2006 was elected deputy chairman of the SDPK. Following
Atambayev's acceptance of the Prime Minister slot from President
Bakiyev, Sariyev broke away from the SDPK and formed his own party,
Ak Shumkar. Sariyev took his party into the UPM in December 2008,
but broke away from it and announced that he would stand as a
candidate for the Ak Shumkar party after the UPM nominated Atambayev
as its presidential candidate. Sariyev is married and has two
children.

Jenishbek Nazaraliyev
--------------


7. (SBU) Jenishbek Nazaraliyev was born in 1961 in Chui province.
He is a well-known psychiatrist and founded a drug treatment center
in Bishkek. Nazaraliyev was an ardent critic of President Akayev
and his regime, and took part in the 2005 protests that forced
Akayev to resign. He declared his intention to run in the 2005
Presidential Election, but like Atambayev, he withdrew his candidacy
to support the Bakiyev-Kulov tandem. Nazaraliyev is running as an
independent candidate. He is married and has two children.

Toktoayim Umetalieva
--------------


8. (SBU) Toktoayim Umetalieva was born in 1962 in Talas Oblast.
She as worked as a Bishkek City Council member, a journalist, and as
a lecturer in physics. Since 2000, she has served as the Chairwoman
of the Association of Non-Governmental and Non-Commercial
Organizations, which professed its loyalty to the Akayev government
during the political upheavals. In the 2005 Presidential Election,
Umetalieva ran as an independent candidate and received 0.55% of
vote. She is married and has three children.

Nurlan Motuyev
--------------


9. (SBU) Nurlan Motuyev was born in 1969 in Naryn Oblast. He is
popularly known as the "coal king," due to his seizure of a
government-owned coal mine during the chaos of spring 2005. He was
jailed for embezzling funds from the mine, and released from prison
in January 2008. Motuyev announced the formation of a Union of
Muslims in late 2008, and garnered headlines by protesting against
Israeli policies in Palestine, and against Manas Airbase. Motuyev
previously lived in the United States, but was subsequently
deported. His children still reside in the United States. The
co-chair of the Union of Muslims, former Ombudsman Tursunbai Bakir
uulu, had also announced his intention to run for President, but
accepted an offer to be the Kyrgyz Ambassador to Malaysia.

Comment

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10. (SBU) These brief sketches hint at the deep connections
linking the three leading candidates. Bakiyev, Atambayev, and
Sariyev all began their careers as party functionaries, and all were
active in organizing against President Akayev. They also share a
history of making and breaking alliances based on immediate tactical
considerations.

LITZENBERGER