Kyrgyzstan's former premier Temir Sariyev will run in what is expected to be a tightly-contested presidential vote in the Central Asian country later this year, his party said on Saturday. Sariyev is the first political heavyweight to officially announce his candidacy for the vote in the former Soviet republic which aims to find a replacement for Almazbek Atambayev, whose six-year term expires in December.
Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous majority-Muslim republic of six million, is the most democratic of the so-called "stans" but also the most politically volatile. In its 25 years of independence, the country has experienced two revolutions unseating presidents in 2005 and 2010 as well as ethnic violence that killed over 400 people.
A spokeswoman for his Ak-Shumkar party told AFP the party had "taken a decision to put forward the candidacy of Temir Sariyev" for the vote which is likely to take place in the autumn.
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