Rather than another blow-by-blow accoutn of what’s going on in Kyrgyzstan, I thought it might be more useful to do a ‘who’s who’ of the protesters. I’ve also tried to touch-up/create bios for some of them over at Wikipedia. Beware: the below is neither comprenensive nor fully checked…
- Almaz Atambaev. Social Democratic Party Businessman, failed presidential candidate in 2000, briefly minister for Industry, trade and tourism
- Omurbek Tekebaev. Speaker (former speaker?) of the Kyrgyz parliament, presidential candidate in 2000. Is his brother, Asylbek Tekebayev, also involved?
- Edil Baisalov: NGO-wallah, blogger, victim of an assassination attempt earlier this year. No formal party affiliation, as far as I know.
- Roza Otunbayeva, former Foreign Minister. Founder of the small Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) party. She was banned from standing in the 2005 elections because she hadn’t been resident in Kyrgyzstan for five years (she had been serving as ambassador to the US!)
- Isa Omurkulov. Former minister of railroads.
- Timur Sariev. Being quoted a lot, but I can’t find anything about him, except that he’s a member of parliament.
- Kubatbek Baibolov – leader of the Union of Democratic Forces
- Melis Eshimkanov. Deputy chair, social democratic party, and former presidential candidate.