During a podcast hosted by journalist Ernis Kyiazov, Omurbek Suvanaliev, the Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Kyrgyz Republic, expressed concern that the updated registration procedures could limit citizen participation in upcoming presidential elections.
Language proficiency and financial barriers
A major point of contention is the mandatory requirement for candidates to prove their knowledge of the state language at the B2 level. Suvanaliev compared this standard to the level required for philology scholars.
They established the B2 level. This is the level at which candidates for philological sciences take exams. The requirements have been raised so high that it feels like they want to filter out as many contenders as possible specifically on linguistic grounds.
Beyond language skills, candidates must navigate a series of mandatory financial and administrative steps before they can proceed to collect signatures.
Mandatory requirements for candidates
According to Suvanaliev, the sequence of registration requires a candidate to first obtain a language certificate, open an election fund, and pay a 1 million som deposit before they are even permitted to apply for the subsequent stage of collecting 30,000 signatures.
The former minister noted that similar language exam tactics were used during the presidency of Askar Akayev. He also claimed that several current members of parliament have previously failed to pass the state language exam themselves.
