Bakyt Torobayev

Torobayev was also an official candidate for the 2017 presidential election in Kyrgyzstan, until he withdrew nine days before the start of the election.

On 10 February 2017, Torobayev confirmed that he was running in the 2017 presidential elections; on 27 June delegates from his own party unanimously confirmed that he was running under the Onuguu–Progress name.

In 2016, Torobayev stood as a candidate for speaker of the Supreme Council, along with Kanat Isayev of the Kyrgyzstan Party. Both failed to receive the required 61 votes to become speaker, as Isayev and Torobayev received 51 votes each.

After his confirmation, he tried twice to broker deals with other parties and politicians; the first in August when Torobayev announced that Onuguu–Progress would merge with two other parties, Mekenim-Kyrgyzstan and Respublika–Ata Zhurt, in an attempt to receive a better electoral vote, and to allow all three party leaders a government post if their candidate were to be elected president. On 4 September he announced that a conference would be held a week later to formally announce the presidential candidate of the new party, named as "Kaira Zharaluy", but the merger failed, as Respubika–Ata Zhurt chairman Kamchybek Tashiyev decided to support the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan for the elections. Six days later Torobayev joined up with Omurbek Babanov, agreeing that should Babanov win, he would become prime minister. Initially one of the thirteen registered candidates, Torobayev eventually withdrew from the race on 6 October.

Originally a political movement, Onuguu–Progress held its first congress on 1 February 2012, and it was formally registered as a party sixteen days later. At its second congress, on 23 April 2015, it elected Torobayev as its leader. The party first stood candidates in the 2015 parliamentary election, winning 13 of the 120 seats in the Supreme Council, coming fourth.

Torobayev entered the Supreme Council after the 2007 parliamentary election, as a member of Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak Zhol party. From 15 December 2009 to 2010 he was the Minister of Emergency Situations, which included the period of the 2010 Kyrgyz revolution. After the overthrow of Bakiyev, Torobayev joined the Respublika Party of Kyrgyzstan, led by Omurbek Babanov. However, Torobayev and Babanov frequently clashed in the party, which led to Torobayev leaving Respublika and founding Onuguu–Progress.

After working in various managerial roles, Torobayev was elected as a deputy for the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan in the 2007 parliamentary election, joining Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak Zhol party. After the 2010 Kyrgyz revolution, when Bakiyev was overthrown, he joined the Respublika Party of Kyrgyzstan, but clashed with party leader Omurbek Babanov, leading him to join Onuguu-Progress.

He also, in 1999, graduated from the economics faculty of the Kyrgyz State National University with a degree in finance and credit. Between 2000 and 2009, he worked as the CEO of Mariam, a flour factory.

Bakyt Ergeshevich Torobayev (Kyrgyz: Бакыт Эргешевич Төрөбаев , Russian: Бакыт Эргешевич Торобаев , born 5 April 1973) is a Kyrgyz politician, and has been the leader of the Onuguu-Progress party since 2013.

Torobayev was born on 5 April 1973 in the city of Jalal-Abad, in south-west Kyrgyzstan (then the Soviet republic of the Kirgiz SSR). He started work in 1995 as a director of Zhamlia i K, a Kazakhstan-based production and commercial company, specialising in the sale of petroleum products and the construction of filling stations. Between 1998 and 1999, he worked on a farm named "Asia-Suzak" as its chairman.