Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has granted the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) mandate to form a majority coalition which will be eventually called to appoint a government, according to a statement published on the president’s website on October 29.

The SDPK party, whose members include the president himself, won the October 4 election, receiving 27.56% of the votes and winning 38 out of 120 seats in the Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz unicameral parliament. Among other parties, Respublika-Ata Jurt gained 20.26% of the votes (28 seats), the Kyrgyzstan party 13.07% of the votes (18 seats), Onuugu-Progress 9.39% of the votes (13 seats), Bir Bol 8.59% of the votes (12 seats) and Ata-Meken 7.8% of the votes (11 seats). Kyrgyzstan’s newly-elected MPs swore in on October 28.

As the SDPK mandate was largely expected, its leader, Chynybay Tursunbekov, has already conducted talks with members of the Ata-Meken party and the Kyrgyzstan party, according to a report by news website Sputnik.kg from October 29. The two parties agreed to join the majority coalition, the report said. Tursunbekov is set to continue the coalition talks with the other parties in the forthcoming days.

The parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan was “competitive and provided voters with a wide range of choice, while the manner in which they were administered highlighted the need for better procedures and increased transparency”, said the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on October 5.