Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov and his wife Aigul Asanbaeva cast their ballots at a polling station in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, April 11, 2021.
A disputed parliamentary vote saw Japarov's predecessor, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, become the third Kyrgyz president to resign during a political crisis since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 as Japarov won backing to lead from the political elite. Japarov had already confirmed his dominance over domestic politics in January, when he won the presidency in a landslide.
Adis Asanov, a 65-year-old pensioner, told an AFP correspondent in Bishkek that he had voted for the new constitution because of his disappointment with parliament's lawmakers who had "bought their seats and lobbied their own corrupt interests".Local critics dubbed the hastily drafted document a "khanstitution", evoking the powerful patriarchs who ruled Central Asia in centuries gone by.