#187: MIA President

Everyone in Kyrgyzstan is talking about President Bakiev's wellbeing. He he has not returned from a vacation from Germany where he left on March 3. Silence and half-truths coming from President's press office and contradicting information coming from various top government officials on reason of his long absence became the cause of all kinds of rumors about President's health. Initially, his press office said that the president went on a vacation, not hospitalization or surgery, for two weeks to Germany, where his younger brother serves as the Kyrgyz Ambassador.

Now that the President has been missing in action for three weeks and his Chief of Staff said today that the President will return only at the end of next week, making him absent for four weeks - he will miss the March 21 Nooruz and March 24 Revolution Day celebrations with parades and fireworks - more or less everyone believes that he is seriously ill. Rumors have that he has problems with his kidneys or liver, while some ill-wishers believe he has been wounded in an armed argument within his family. This silence, fed by different rumors, is worrying.