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).

[2][4][5] Torobayev entered the Supreme Council after the 2007 parliamentary election as a member of Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Ak Zhol party.

[7] 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.

[8] He did not take up his 15-minute airtime slot on OTRK, Kyrgyzstan's national broadcaster, after the station accused his supporters of bribing voters.

[18] From the fallout of Babanov failing to secure the presidency, three deputies from his party attempted to launch a leadership challenge against Torobayev; an internal vote subsequently expelled them from the party, and the newspaper Vecherny Bishkek, described by analysis site EurasiaNet as a 'privately owned government mouthpiece', made comments about how Torobayev may "lose control [...] over the Onuguu-Progress faction".

[5] He has four brothers and one sister, Askarali, who works as deputy chairman for the State Service for Combating Economic Crimes, and Batyr, who heads the association of millers at the Union of Entrepreneurs of the Republic.