Marat Amankulov

Amankulov served in the Soviet Army between 1988 and 1990 as part of the Western Group of Forces in East Germany; after leaving, he started work in the same year as an exporter of light industry.[2]

In 2008, Amankulov was elected as a deputy in the Bishkek City Council for the third Gagarinsky electoral district. During his time as deputy, he became the representative of the city's budgetary and finance committee (in 2009), became speaker of the assembly in March 2011 and was reelected in that role again, in November 2012. Also, in December 2011, Amankulov became the Chairman of the Fund for State Property Management.[2]

Amankulov was elected as deputy for the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan in the 2015 parliamentary election.[2] In September 2020, days before the October 2020 Kyrgyz parliamentary election, video footage of Amankulov making a remark that seemed to regret Kyrgyzstan's independence was leaked.[3][4] Amankulov stated that "The ideology of our party is Eurasianism, and that is what we are aspiring toward", and that "thirty years of life in independence have shown us that the time has come for us to rethink and return to the fold".[3] While Amankulov has stated that his remarks were taken out of context, they were met with condemnation, and 300 protesters held a rally in the capital Bishkek to denounce his remarks the following day.[3][5]