KURMANBEK BAKIYEV STARTS HIS SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM WITH THE REFORMS

DAVID GOZER,
Doctor of Social Geography, expert on Kyrgyzstan, Bordeaux 3 University, Kyrgyz National University, Bishkek
Eurasian Home: “Why did Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev start his second presidential term with reforming the government administration system, and not, for example, with social and economic reforms?”
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan started the government administration reform, including the fight against corruption and clan system that are very bad for the Kyrgyz society. At present the corruption demoralizes the political and economic spheres, and the clan system hinders effectiveness of the government administration.
At the same time the President would like to keep Igor Chudinov, ethnic Russian, as Prime Minister because he seeks to put an end to the clan and regional rivalry at the highest level.
However the President’s radical initiatives meet strong resistance at the regional and local levels. Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s plans to carry out the administrative reform within 6 months, as he promised the MPs on September 1, 2009, seem to be a serious challenge. But once the President must address the problems from which Kyrgyzstan suffers, even if he solves them in many years.
Eurasian Home: “Why did the President make this decision? Is he going to improve the government agencies’ work, or is it a consequence of a turf war?”
Since the Soviet period, the Kyrgyz officials coming from the North of the country have opposed those coming from the South. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev came from the southern Jalal-Abad region and after his coming to power in 2005 many executive posts were filled by the southerners – they replaced the officials who had been appointed by former President Askar Akayev who came from the North.
Today it is considered, especially in Bishkek, that the southerners seized the posts in the main bodies of government. The people, who live in the northern regions, are worried that their representatives do not work in the government.
Many people also believe that the President is going to pursue his reform to remain in power as long as possible and to increase the number of his local supporters.
But any government reform should be carried out with taking brave and risky measures. Introduction of the quotas for women and ethnic minorities in Jorgorku Kengesh (the Kyrgyz Parliament) and all the parliamentary groups’ duty to establish political parties are the brave reforms, and time will show how successful they will be.
On the other hand, Kyrgyzstan urgently needs the serious modernization of the judicial, law enforcement, military, economic and trade spheres. They are modernized due to Kyrgyzstan’s receiving credits from its foreign partners, which will not be issued if administration of those spheres is not transparent. That’s why there is a need to draw the local officials’ attention to functioning of the institutions of the foreign countries that are becoming more and more globalized.
So, the officials will have to learn foreign languages, use Internet and communication facilities in their work, respect the citizens addressing their requests to them, be scrupulous, make fair decisions, be impartial to themselves, to clans or regions.
Kyrgyzstan will have to pay such a price to guarantee the economic and social development, which the President realizes and tries to achieve. But it will take a long time for Kurmanbek Bakiyev to do that, especially as because he is going to act gradually “respecting the national traditions and without imitating the West” (the President’s address, September 1, 2009), in other words, the President is not going to drastically change the people’s mentality which, nevertheless, is to be adapted to the world, which is being globalized, in the course of time.
Eurasian Home: “How realistic are the President's new initiatives?”
The regional and local level Kyrgyz officials do not want the reforms. The President cannot implement all of them within one presidential term – the struggle he carries on is a struggle of many generations. But Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s brave intentions show that he is ready to fundamentally reform Kyrgyzstan’s political system and economy.
Now Kyrgyzstan is one of the states whose corruption level is the highest in the world. The President knows that and means to alter the tendency reforming the government administration system. He also knows that he should get the opposition involved in pursuing his reforms to finish the struggle for power between the southern and north regional elites. The oppositionists, who take concrete steps, will always be more effective than those who just criticize the authorities. More than that, different Kyrgyz politicians took an interest in the President’s reforms and made a valuable contribution to the “ideas debate”.
At last, the President knows that the growth of economic and social inequality poses a big threat not only to his power, but also, in the long term, to the national unity. In the mountainous landlocked country, whose regions are isolated from each other in long winter, the national unity is of great importance.
September 15, 2009
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