Kyrgyzstan: Parliament Bans Cleavage, Clashing Ties

During a pivotal moment for Kyrgyzstan’s parliament – as lawmakers prepare a vote of no confidence in the prime minister, and as they discuss whether to nationalize the country’s largest mine – the people’s deputies took a moment to focus on sartorial issues. 

A new set of rules and recommendations approved late June 26 bans visitors and staff from wearing miniskirts and clashing ties inside the Jogorku Kenesh, local media outlets report. The rules do not, however, apply to the deputies themselves. 

The Jogorku Kenesh’s committee on parliamentary procedure and ethics has forbidden women from wearing shiny embroidery or exposing too much cleavage. Women must also go easy with the perfume. Men must ensure their shirt and tie match the color of their suit. No baggy sweaters are allowed and jeans are strictly verboten. 

The committee encourages both men and women to wear discreet colors, such as blue, beige, gray and brown. Everyone is now prohibited from wearing lace, and no one is allowed to enter the White House in a tank top or flashing his or her stomach.

Are these rules necessary? Forbidding slippers and flip-flops does make good safety sense. (So would banning bare-knuckle brawls and guns.)

But the Kyrgyz press isn’t letting the committee get away without a laugh. AKIpress caustically notes that it will be difficult to enforce the regulations: “it’s possible to imagine a situation in which deputy speaker Asiya Sasykbayeva (she’s the one in charge of overseeing implementation) will be running from floor to floor of the White House trying to talk looters into changing their clothes.”

Indeed, during the upheaval in 2005 and 2010, many of the looters were wearing tracksuits. Perhaps they were trying to blend in with the deputies.