OREANDA-NEWS. Against the background of political protests in Kyrgyzstan, The Central Election Commission (CEC) proposed to the parliament of the republic to lower the electoral threshold before the next election to the legislative body.

Commission member Gulnara Dzhurabaeva told TASS new agency about this. “Yesterday at the meeting, the CEC members spoke about the need to lower the electoral threshold so that there would not be such a large number of groups not represented in parliament. […] We approved it at the meeting, and the letter was sent to parliament,” she said. According to Dzhurabaeva, the proposal to lower the electoral threshold was put forward by the chairman of the CEC, Nurjan Shaildabekova.

Now, in order to be elected to parliament, political parties need to gain at least 7 % of votes. The previous decrease in the electoral threshold took place in July 2020. Then President Sooronbay Jeenbekov approved amendments to the law on the election of the president and parliament deputies, lowering the threshold from 9 to 7 %.

Over the past ten years, the country changed the electoral threshold several times: from 5 % in 2010 to 7 % in 2015, and to 9 % in 2017.