BACKGROUND: It is not the first time that Kyrgyzstan experiences a period of serious political turmoil. Back in 1990-1991, the country was on a brink of political collapse and uncertainty. There were even fears that the inter-ethnic and political conflicts that started in the southern Osh region in the Summer of 1990 would escalate into civil war. Then as now, national political leaders showed their inability to face the challenge of the country’s economic and social problems, while paying lip service to the democratization process. The political agenda was increasingly dominated by a rivalry between two major regional groupings, the so-called southern and northern clans. The situation worsened further when the country’s leaders badly mismanaged the situation in Osh, leading to numerous human casualties. Complete anarchy reigned and mobs ruled the streets of cities and towns in the South. This was the situation when several political parties and organizations stepped in. They were weak and disorganized, and ridden by deep-seated regional divides. Absamat Masaliyev, the communist ruler, exploited the rivalries between them to weaken the opposition further. Nevertheless, the opposition leaders were able to overcome their differences. In 1990 they established the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan (DMK), uniting several political groups and parties. The DMK came up with a viable political program, and set up convincing and realistic goals that attracted many people to its ranks. Ultimately, the political arena was transformed from chaotic to orderly. Many political, social and community groups found their place in this process, and restored their trust in an orderly political process. The DMK facilitated the defeat of comrade Masaliyev and the election of Askar Akayev as the first president of the country. However, President Akayev was never comfortable with the presence of the opposition. Akayev chose to weaken the very same political parties and groups that brought him to the power. Instead of supporting the emerging multiparty and pluralistic political system in Kyrgyzstan, he turned back to the practices of his predecessor, engaging in behind-the-scene bargaining with regional clans. President Akayev neither established his own party, nor did he associate himself with any. Akayev co-opted conformists into the government, but severely punished those who disagreed with him. Many political parties were intimidated and reduced to irrelevance by a never-ending chain of political and legal manipulations and intimidations. To be fair, the opposition parties were not free of mistakes. They had great difficulties in establishing cohesive political platforms, had no organizational strategies, and rarely put their feet outside the major metropolitan areas. They also failed to recruit and promote young people into their ranks. This limited political participation to relatively small groups of comrades in their forties and fifties. This practice excluded a large segment of the society, the youth, from the political process, especially in rural areas. Political life at the raion (district) and oblast (province) level became increasingly dominated by the so-called New Kyrgyz – a symbiosis of local government officials and business people. In this environment, a new class of politicians gradually emerged: those who preferred to rely on the patronage and clan networks of kinship groups. Political competition in the country degenerated into a competition between individuals, not between political ideas. This led to what could be termed a tribalization of Kyrgyzstan’s political process. Many politicians began to believe that political parties could not be a vehicle of political success in this highly fragmented society. This was especially true in the rural areas, home to two thirds of the population. Local politicians began organizing paramilitary or militia-style groups of supporters for radical actions, such as mass demonstrations and the seizure of public or government buildings. This proved to be especially effective in remote constituencies, as the government often listened only to politicians who organized private militias. This process gained strength in the South in the early 2000s, and gathered steam after the shootings of civilians in the Aksy district in 2003. Private militias, sometimes with links to the organized criminal underworld, had by early 2005 appeared in all provinces of the country, and consisted mainly of people who were largely excluded from the political process – rural youth in their twenties and thirties. For young villagers, it was the only way to end the vicious circle of political and social marginalization. The situation was so tense, and the political environment so chaotic and uncontrollable, that even a small incident could ignite mass disturbances and riots. The political and regional confrontation and public anger over manipulation and fraud during the parliamentary election campaign in late 2004 and early 2005 proved to be the catalyzer that brought chaos to many areas in the country, in turn sparking off the March 2005 Revolution.

IMPLICATIONS: The absence of strong political institutions in Kyrgyzstan significantly undermined the political stability in the country and led to the tribalization of the political process. This became particularly obvious in a time of social unrest and instability, with at least five implications. First, after a decade of political reforms and manipulations, Kyrgyzstan’s political environment degraded into a ‘grab-all’ political system. Both sides – the government and the opposition – showed little respect for the rule of law or political norms. All sides strongly believed that they could and should manipulate the political system for their short term gains. Second, the opposition parties proved to be weak and ineffective. This is hardly a new phenomenon in the post-communist world, but what makes Kyrgyzstan different is that instead of strengthening political parties and building political coalitions, politicians turned to establishing and using private paramilitary and militia-style groups, based on tribal and clan loyalties. This further deepened the divide in the country, and undermined perspectives for stabilization. Third, the easiness with which these politicians recruited young supporters into such groups shows that young people are ready to actively participate in the country’s politics by all means, and disproves the assertion that they are either passive or indifferent to the political process. Fourth, Kyrgyzstan’s political system increasingly resembles those in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries with strong tribal traditions, where regional political elites acquire great autonomy and power thought the use of tribal networks and patronage rather than through free and open competition on the basis of ideas and political organizations. Fifth, the democratic channels of communication broke down and all political participants relied mainly on the intricate patronage and personal networks that excluded many segments of society from the political process.

CONCLUSIONS: The March 2005 revolution in Kyrgyzstan cannot and will not resolve the existing problems. Society remains extremely fragmented; the political discord between the southern and northern clans runs even deeper. At the local level, the political process is being monopolized by local political leaders who frequently rely on and enforce their political demands through paramilitary groups. In order to break the vicious circle of instability and chaos, the leadership and all political forces face the task of strengthening political institutions and reinforcing a competitive political process that is based on the participation of and competition between strong political parties, but not paramilitary groups or individual ambitious politicians. Unfortunately there are no simple and straightforward formulas or strategies, but several conclusions can be drawn from the past. Kyrgyzstan’s experience indicates that the so-called super-presidential system, which in one way or another was established in many CIS areas, tends to achieve a short term goals at the expense of long term stability and even aggravates the instability in time of power transition. Delegating more power from the presidential office to the parliament and strengthen its role in the policy-making process is one option that is currently discussed in order to achieve sustainable stability in the country. Second, the electoral system of single-member majoritarian districts for parliamentary elections has contributed to fragmentation and prevented attempts to involve major competing clans and fractions in society into the party-based political process. Reinstating the party-list proportional elections in the parliamentary elections is one option to address this issue. Third, the present parliament shows clear tendencies of turning into the arena for regional, clan and individual completion. This can only be mitigated by enticing MPs to work intensively with political parties and ideally recruiting them into their ranks, pushing parliament members to begin competing and bargaining according to political programs and party platforms. Fourth, a main destabilizing element of Kyrgyzstan’s politics so far is its failure to involve youth – something that needs acute attention of the political leadership, in order to convince people that an orderly political process, not sticks and rocks, will promote the resolution of their problems.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Rafis Abazov, PhD, is an adjunct lecturer at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in the city of New York. He is author of Freedom House reports on Kyrgyzstan (2002 and 2003) and of the Historical Dictionary of Kyrgyzstan (2004).