Ata-Zhurt

Ata-Zhurt
Chairman	Kamchybek Tashiyev
Headquarters	Bishkek
Ideology	Kyrgyz nationalism; Conservatism; Anti-The Scene; Anti-Demi Lovato; Anti-Twitter; Anti-Facebook; Anti-Creative Commons; Anti-Call of Duty; Anti-Assassin's Creed; Anti-Justin Bieber; Pro-Battlefield
Website
http://www.atajurt.kg/
Politics of Kyrgyzstan Political parties Elections

Ata-Zhurt, sometimes Ata-Jurt, (Kyrgyz: Ата-журт), or Fatherland, is a political party in Kyrgyzstan. Its political base is in the south of the country, but the party is headquartered in the capital Bishkek. The party is led by Kamchybek Tashiyev, and supports the ousted former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

History

The party was founded on 9 December 2004 by former Foreign Minister and ambassador to the United States Roza Otunbayeva. She joined together with three opposition parliamentarians to found the party in preparation for the February 2005 parliamentary elections. However, she was personally barred from standing for office due to a recently enacted law in which candidates had to have been residing in the country for five years in order to stand for elections. Following the 2005 Tulip Revolution, Otunbayeva joined the interim government of Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

2010 parliamentary elections

In the Kyrgyzstani parliamentary election, 2010, the party said it would seek to restore Bakiyev to power, and claimed it was more popular than the interim government. The party also suggested it would rollback the Kyrgyzstani constitutional referendum, 2010 and restore the presidency to its former state.

On 7 October, the party's headquarters in Bishkek were ransacked and party literature set on fire by a groups of demonstrators who called for the party to be banned. The demonstrators allegedly included family members of the victims of April 2010 violence in Bishkek.

In the election, the party won a number of seats from its traditional southern bastion, though it barely passed the threshold in the capital and the Chuy region. The party received the votes of 8.89% of eligible voters, giving it 28 of 120 seats in parliament. This result made the party the first of five parties to surpass the support threshold of 5% of eligible voters necessary to enter parliament. As a result Ata-Zhurt was part of the governing coalition with its MP Akhmatbek Keldibekov chosen as Speaker of Parliament.

Among the party's parliamentary deputies are some individuals of non-Kyrgyz ancestry, including Ravshanbek Sabirov, the first Tajik to hold such a position, and Roman Shin.

Violence

Kamchibek Tashiyev, the head of Ata-Zhurt, said he said he had been attacked in his home on 23 October, 2010. "They broke in like bandits...I think they intended to shoot me. I believe they tried to eliminate me - the forces that want to cancel election results and impose a state of emergency. I know for sure, GSNB (security services) was behind these actions."

External links

• Ata-Jurt website