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POLITICAL SITUATION IN KYRGYZSTAN
VYACHESLAV KHAMISOV,
Member of the working group "Crisis Management in Central Asia-99" under the Consortium of Military Academies and Institutes
EURASIAN HOME: “Recently we have witnessed the prisoners’ revolt in Kyrgyzstan, the riots have taken place in the south of the country, and the acts of Bayaman Erkinbayev’s adherents in Jalal-Abad have been committed. Does it mean that Kyrgyzstan may face a new political crisis in the nearest future?”
The political crisis in Kyrgyzstan is not over yet. It started in 2002 with the Aksyi shooting. Nowadays, on the scene of the political crisis there appear different organized groups of actors: discontent voters, capturers of suburban lands, the Ysyk-Kol regional group of Mr. Baryktabasov and the prisoners of the penal colonies of Chuyskaya valley. So, the authorities have to maneuver between different pressure groups in order to retain power and consolidate the country.
It is good that in Kyrgyzstan there is being shaped a kind of the corporate culture of democracy. The authorities, while building up the missing control hierarchy, learn how to form temporary and permanent alliances and to avoid open antagonisms. It is regrettable however that much energy and financial resources are being spent on clan wars whereas they could have been better employed in supporting country’s failing economy.
The crisis will come to an end only after authorities establish a strong power vertical. But first there should be created horizontal ties. The constitutional convention is cumbersome and amorphous and yet it is ready to legalize, as constitutional provisions, the partnership between the government and civil society associations, in particular the youth organizations.
EURASIAN HOME: “What are the chances that the ‘criminal revolution’ will take place in Kyrgyzstan? Will Kyrgyzstan turn into Central Asian Columbia”?
Many problems arise from the fact that the architects of the country’s modernization did not draw a line between the political and economic components of the governance.
China shows the success in this principle’s employment. Business and state power are separated with the clear-cut legal norms that are being rigorously followed.
Kyrgyzstan and many other CIS countries lack it. That is why businessmen are willing to come to power in order to solve their own problems. Since some modern “new Kyrgyzstanis” have murky bagman backgrounds and many small and middle businesses come from the shadow economy, it is difficult to distinguish between criminal businessmen and law-abiding ones.
But it is a half of the problem. The other half is that the criminal revolts are used to allot and solve the political tasks of coercion upon the Parliament and the executive branch of the government. This unscrupulousness shows the unclarity of the main orientation of the political program, if this program exists.
The question is whether the drug trafficking has come to be the leading sector of the Kyrgyz economy. I suppose nobody will answer in the affirmative. Power economy, agriculture, extractive industry and tourism are much more profitable than drug trafficking. Besides, getting the threshold country status for participation in the US program “Millennium Challenge Account” opens for Kyrgyzstan serious prospects to solve economic problems and it is in no way compatible with the dubious incomes of the illicit drug trafficking.
EURASIAN HOME: “They often write about a friction betweenKurmanbek Bakiyev and Felix Kulov. How strong is this political alliance and what are its prospects?”
I’d say the style of Askar Akayev’s governance was effeminate – his public statements lacked criticism and strong position. The appearance of his daughter Bermet and her party “Alga, Kyrgyzstan” on a political scene looked like an offset of what Akayev was short of.
The Bakiyev-Kulov alliance is a tandem of two Kyrgyz dzhigits. The proposals are either accepted by the allies entirely or rejected at all. The principles of the political alliance are important, but they are less important than that of knights’ alliance. This tandem is of masculine origin – may the strongest win. I think this is a positive side of the Kulov-Bakiyev political alliance.
The authorities regard this tandem as a good start for promoting the control hierarchy. Kulov should learn how to fulfil the duties of the executive, and Bakiyev should learn how to represent the nation’s interests and to carry out a new foreign policy.
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