Azernews.Az

BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan's moderate prime minister and a leading nationalist are the most prominent candidates to have registered by Tuesday's deadline for presidential elections in October, AFP reported.

A total of 83 candidates have been nominated to run in the October 30 elections, Zhenishbek Akmatov, a member of the Central Election Commission told reporters on Tuesday at the end of the nomination period.

The candidates now must now collect at least 30,000 signatures and pay a collateral of 100,000 soms (1,565 euros) by September 25.

In an unusual move, they will also have to pass a live televised state language test at a date yet to be announced for their name to go on the ballot for the October 30 presidential elections.

These moves are likely to eliminate majority of the candidates. Only 16 candidates have been nominated by political groups in Kyrgyzstan while the rest nominated themselves.

By far the most prominent candidates to have registered are the current prime minister and the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Almazbek Atambayev and the leader of Ata-Yurt Party Kamchybek Tashiyev.

The October 30 poll is the first presidential election since the violent uprising in April 2010 that toppled president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and brought to power a pro-Western administration.

In a referendum last year, Kyrgyzstan said it would attempt to forge Central Asia's first parliamentary democracy, hoping to bring calm to the restive region, littered with countries with a strong presidential rule.

President Roza Otunbayeva, who spearheaded political reforms after the April uprising followed by deadly inter-ethnic clashes in June, will step down at the end of the year.

Atambayev is a longstanding confidant of Otunbayeva while Tashiyev was an ally of Bakiyev who remains popular in the former president's stronghold in the south of the country.

The first female leader in the history of ex-Soviet Central Asia, Otunbayeva herself is barred from running.

Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic sandwiched between regional powerhouse China and mineral-rich Kazakhstan, is the only country in the world to house US and Russian military bases.

Both the United States and Russia jostle for military influence in a region gaining in strategic importance owing to its proximity to Afghanistan.