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KYRGYZSTAN: RESULTS OF KURMANBEK BAKIYEV'S THREE YEARS AS PRESIDENT
TAMERLAN IBRAIMOV,
Director of the Center for Political and Legal Studies, Bishkek
The results of the three-year presidency of Kurmanbek Bakiyev are not impressive. Many tasks that were set in 2005 have not been fulfilled yet.
In all fairness, one has to recognize that there were many problems, and a lot of them were system ones. Suffice it to mention widespread corruption, non-transparent work of the supreme bodies of government, absence of independent courts, regular violation of human rights and freedoms, unsettled issues of cooperation with the neighboring countries in the water-energy spheres, Kyrgyzstan’s vulnerability in terms of food security, unemployment, development imbalance of the country’s provinces, etc.
A separate problem is the groundwork to legitimize Bakiyev and his team’s power. As is known, Kurmanbek Bakiyev became the President in the wake of the 24 March 2005 events when the enormous rally participants forced Askar Akayev to leave the country and resign. Bakiyev won the presidential election because many citizens wanted changes in the country. Another reason for his landslide was his alliance with then popular politician Felix Kulov who, after Bakiyev’s victory, became the Prime Minister.
The expectation of changes helped Bakiyev come to power, but at the same time, like the sword of Damocles, it was hanging over the President prompting him to carry out reforms as soon as possible. The Kulov-Bakiyev alliance had never been sincere and strong. In the long run, it broke up when Kulov was dismissed as a result of political infighting. The reforms in the spheres of economy and state administration were procrastinated and the new President started losing popular support. Shortly after Bakiyev’s coming to power, people started to organize protest actions insisting that the authorities should pursue reforms, and in the first place, amend the Constitution. Supporting the reforms in words, the President dragged out the process, holding all sorts of constitutional meetings, establishing a great deal of constitutional committees and groups that prepared several versions of the Constitution, spent time discussing them, but never came to terms.
As a matter of fact, the committees failed to come to terms because the Kyrgyz society is greatly fragmented and has no prevailing view about the form of government and other elements of the state building. The best scenario would be Bakiyev’s shouldering the responsibility, working out and putting forward the Constitution that would really provide for the checks and balances of the three branches of government and transparency in the government’s activities.
However, Bakiyev did it his way. He chose a course of action that is more habitual, convenient for most post-Soviet politicians and more clear to them – to keep up the paternalistic system. Such a system seems natural to the politicians who grew up in the Soviet Union and imbibed the command methods of governance. Instead of the miracle (destruction of the paternalistic system) a more natural phenomenon took place – life resumed its normal course. So, all of that was expected.
The political reform was rather a window dressing. After a whole number of enormous rallies, signing of two versions of new Constitutions, dispersal of the opposition rally at Bishkek’s central square, Bakiyev cancelled the Constitution versions, which he himself had signed (in November 2006 and January 2007), submitted his version to the referendum and held the early parliamentary elections.
According to the President, the referendum and the early elections were fair and transparent. But the opposition affirmed that they had been held with the gross violations of law and that they had been rigged. However, the opposition failed to organize large-scale protest marches and the government became the winner.
Therefore, today Kyrgyzstan has:
- the President who exhausted and partially smashed the opposition and turned out more resourceful in terms of tactics;
- the Parliament that is loyal to the President;
- the opposition that seeks to be united and develop after the three exhausting years.
Now the Kyrgyz opposition consists of many political forces, non-governmental associations and policy-makers who do not agree with the President and with his ways to rule the country. The major factor, which unites them, is the negative attitude towards the authorities.
On this basis the grass root association “For Fairness” was formed after the 2007 parliamentary elections. It embraces more than ten political parties, policy-makers and public figures, for example Temir Sariev, Omurbek Tekebayev, Alikbek Dzhekshenkolov, Miroslav Niyazov, Adbygany Erkebayev and many other famous people. The association’s objectives are to make Kyrgyzstan a law-based state, to prevent the moral values of the Kyrgyz people from being destroyed and to protect the human rights.
At the same time, almost the same forces started organizing the Public Parliament that, in its members’ opinion, is to examine the socially important issues and to advance alternative solutions to them. Apart from that, famous oppositionist, former MP and Bakiyev’s companion-in-arms during the 2005 “revolution” Azimbek Beknazarov has announced the creation of a “Revolutionary Committee”. According to Beknazarov, the committee will be semi-underground. Its objective is to overthrow the authorities and elect those who would meet the ideals of the 2005 “revolution”. The committee members said that Bakiyev had betrayed those ideals.
The authorities’ reaction to the opposition’s activities was severe. There were warnings and even threats. Minister of Justice Marat Kaiypov said that the creation of alternative government bodies (the Public Parliament) was illegal and would be prosecuted. The opposition members responded that the Public Parliament was a non-governmental organization and every citizen of the country had the right to establish such organizations. They also said that the Public Parliament was not going to overthrow the current government.
There is no speaking about the full establishment of alternative government bodies, but there is a symbolical sense here. Disagreement with the role played by the government bodies, with the form of their creation as well as the lack of forces to change them make a part of the society establish symbolic alternative agencies. By the way, this trend concerned not only the Parliament. Recently the people responsible for the Aksyisk tragedy have been tried by People’s Court. The events took place in 2003 when the policemen shot several marchers down. The people believe that the authorities failed to finish that case and to institute criminal proceedings against the true culprits. The demonstrational People’s Trial was organized to ease the distrust of the state courts. Almost everybody, over 40 people were found guilty in their absence (they did not appear before the court). Those include former President Askar Akayev and current President Kurmanbek Bakiyev (then Prime Minister). Evidently, the court’s decisions won’t be implemented, but its symbolic meaning is quite clear.
Today Kyrgyzstan’s political situation can be described as the society is divided up into two parts – the elite who is loyal to the authorities and the elite’s adversaries.
The situation has become more complicated due to spread of the corruption, high rate of inflation, necessity to solve the challenging border issues with the neighboring countries and vagueness with the coming privatization of the country’s energy sector. All those factors indicate the authorities’ inefficiency, but their overthrow would not be supported by the majority of the population. In many respects, this happens because the opposition leaders do not consider it reasonable to change the power by using force and are not ready to assume the historic responsibility since another revolution can lead to unpredictable consequences, even to a civil war. Many citizens, who have learned that by experience, ask themselves whether Bakiyev’s successor will be a better reformer without change of power.
If to take into account all those factors, there is also a need to say that Kyrgyzstan’s political forces are vigorous and they have become experienced in holding various rallies. In the light of great problems in the socioeconomic sphere such rallies can be held virtually at any time and under certain conditions they should be more or less effective.
The situation may be influenced by different factors, for example, the President’s serious illness that was talked about in the country after the President had suddenly gone to Germany. At first, the press service of the President stated that the President had taken a holiday from March 3 to 16. Then it was said that the President would come back on March 28. If to take into account that on March 21 the country observed “Navruz” and on March 24 – the Day of National Revolution that brought Bakiyev to power, the statement that the President had gone on leave is unconvincing, to put it mildly. The people are lost in guesses and floating more and more insane rumors, but the officials keep saying that the President is healthy and that he is on leave.
Anyway, the information about the President’s health will be made public soon. If he attends to his duties in full measure, in the short term the political processes will continue to be sluggish. The processes will be based on the systematic preparation for the 2010 presidential election.
If the President is ill and cannot perform his duties properly, in the near future the struggle for leadership will more hard-fought and the snap presidential election will be held in the country. The struggle will take place among the opposition members and among the authorities. If the opposition is united and nominates a single candidate, it has a better chance of winning the presidential election than the authorities since any government candidate is unlikely to take many votes. Now few people trust the authorities. An attempt to rig the election will almost certainly meet with the general repulse.
However, if the President is ill, a different scenario may occur. Before holding the early presidential election the opposition members may insist that the early parliamentary elections should be held because they consider the current Parliament to be non-legitimate.
The opposition explains that in the following way. At a time when there is no full-fledged President in the country, holding of the parliamentary elections makes it possible to avoid the aggressive use of the built-in advantage and the large-scale electoral fraud. Therefore, the parliamentary elections will be relatively fair. The new Parliament can start carrying out the constitutional reform and only after its completion it can announce the new presidential election.
Other scenarios can occur. Kyrgyzstan is a country of mountain rivers that flow slowly and then much more rapidly sometimes turning into noisy waterfalls. This is true to a large extent of the political situation in the country. In the near future a great deal will depend on the President’s state of health and on how his entourage and the opposition will be consolidated. The both things are difficult problems. If they are not solved, one or another party will be doomed to failure.
April 11, 2008
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