BISHKEK (TCA) — The parliament of Kyrgyzstan has approved President Sooronbai Jeenbekov’s move to sack the country’s Prosecutor-General Indira Joldubaeva, who has been criticized for what activists say is the persecution of opposition politicians and independent media, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reported.
Parliament backed Joldubaeva’s ouster in a 105-2 vote on April 11.
Jeenbekov is now expected to issue a dismissal decree that would make her the latest in a series of officials appointed by former President Almazbek Atambayev to be fired by his successor amid tension between the two men.
Joldubaeva, 39, was appointed in January 2015 after lawmakers approved her nomination by Atambayev.
After she took over the Prosecutor-General’s Office, several opposition politicians, activists, and lawmakers were prosecuted and some of them imprisoned.
Joldubaeva’s ouster follows growing signs of a rift between Jeenbekov and Atambayev, who steered his former prime minister into the presidency in an October 2017 vote but has criticized him in recent weeks.
On April 7, Jeenbekov dismissed the hard-line head of the State Committee for National Security, Abdil Segizbaev, who also had long been criticized for a crackdown on opposition politicians and independent journalists.
Atambayev had kept a low profile for several months after leaving office in November, but he has publicly criticized Jeenbekov on several occasions following his election as head of the ruling Social Democratic Party on March 31.
