Kyrgyzstan set for surprise presidential election result

ADVERTISEMENT

Polls ahead of the election had been predicting no overall winner, but Kyrgyzstan looks to have chosen its next president.

With nearly 97 percent of the votes counted, former prime minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was on track for surprise outright victory after preliminary results showed he had taken around 55 percent of the vote.

His main rival, oil tycoon Omurbek Babanov, was well behind, on around 33 percent, according to the Central Asian state’s election commission.

Both candidates are seen as pro-Russian. Kyrgyzstan is already a close ally of Moscow and home to a large Russian military base.