The upheaval in Kyrgyzstan – the second in five years – raises the question whether Kyrgyzstan has any serious prospects of developing into a stable, sovereign state, let alone one with a pluralistic political system. The opposition that has claimed power faces major challenges, including curbing corruption, breaking the links between the state and organized crime, and creating a political order conducive for social and economic stability. Whether the members of the interim government fit this ticket remains doubtful. In case of continued instability, a scenario in which Kyrgyzstan’s sovereignty is effectively reduced cannot be ruled out.  

BACKGROUND: For the second time in five years, Kyrgyzstan was thrown into a severe political crisis following a popular revolt. After a progressive start in the beginning of the 1990s, when the international community lauded the bold attempts of first President Askar Akayev to introduce democracy and a market economy, Kyrgyzstan turned increasingly authoritarian in the late 1990s. Growing popular dissatisfaction with the Akayev regime led to the so-called Tulip Revolution in March 2005 that forced Akayev out of the country and brought Kurmanbek Bakiyev to power. The Tulip Revolution raised expectations of renewed democratization in Kyrgyzstan. Yet, in the subsequent five years Kyrgyzstan’s downward slide accelerated perilously. The ouster of Bakiyev and the apparent regime change raises the question of the prospects for Kyrgyzstan’s long-term stability, and whether a fresh start is likely.

Instead of democracy, Bakiyev consolidated power and control by creating a full-scale kleptocracy based on establishing control over a few major financial flows, and the distribution of top government positions to the president’s closest family members. Repressive actions targeting the opposition and journalists increased dramatically. The methods used by Bakiyev’s regime were nevertheless more flexible and innovative than those conventionally associated with authoritarian regimes: rather than mainly relying on the state’s coercive apparatus, it employed criminal gangs to intimidate, extort and assassinate troublesome or unwanted figures.

Under Akayev, a side effect of the evolving family rule based on controlling legal economic activities was that involvement in organized crime became the major way to rival the presidential family’s hold on the economy. It is generally accepted that organized crime leaders played a significant role in triggering the Tulip Revolution and affecting its aftermath. The Bakiyev regime, simply put, defeated organized crime by taking control over it. Sources in the law enforcement agencies of Kyrgyzstan allege that the lucrative drug trade emanating from Afghanistan has been controlled by law enforcement agencies under the supervision of members of the president’s closest relatives. Indeed, under Bakiyev, the Interior Ministry’s special department for combating organized crime was dismantled, and the U.S.-sponsored Drug Control Agency abolished. The state racket replaced the criminal racket.

In spite of the foreign military presence on its territory, no external actors made any attempts to bring the country towards greater stability and democracy. Even international human rights organizations were markedly quiet on what was going on in the country – uncharacteristically so given the level of rhetoric they habitually employ toward other Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan.

IMPLICATIONS: The prospects for a fresh start in Kyrgyzstan need to be evaluated from several angles. A key question is whether the new leadership is either capable of, or willing to, fundamentally alter the nature of the Kyrgyz state as it has evolved in the past decade.

With a few notable exceptions, the opposition is plagued by incompetence and internal rivalries. As was the case five years ago, the common denominator is their resentment of Bakiyev, rather than common political ideas. In the past, the inability of the country’s elite to articulate common national interests has deconstructed the political system into an arena for struggle between various private interests. As long as Kyrgyz politics continue to be defined by narrow private interests, ruthless competition and limited security, elite behavior will tend to be predatory. Such a system provides few incentives to extract revenues in a manner that would be beneficial for long-term economic development. Since the future is so insecure, focus is directed towards exploiting administrative and economic resources with the purpose of acquiring personal enrichment as quickly as possible.

Observers in Kyrgyzstan suggest that among the members of the provisional government, the distribution of government portfolios and jockeying for positions ahead of the planned presidential election are already taking place. There is also the question of whether the new leaders, dominated by individuals from the North, will seek to radically alter the composition of regional interests in the government. Bakiyev’s tenure in power was characterized by a decisive promotion of southerners in top positions at the expense of the long dominating elite from the North, privileged under Akayev. The consequences of this cadre policy proved seriously destabilizing; applying the same policy in the reverse would be even more so.

The small political elite, which has been recycled since independence, belongs to the same Soviet-trained generation. This may very well be the last chance for the old generation to stabilize the country. If it does not, it risks being replaced by a younger generation of ambitious individuals in their thirties that are waiting in the background, ready to step in. So far, the old generation of politicians has effectively blocked any real influence by the emerging generation on the system level. New people are needed in top governmental positions in order to break the vested interests and mentalities that have led the state to its dilapidated present state, and resulted in the complete loss of popular trust in politicians, eroding the state’s public legitimacy.

Corruption is another major issue. In order to understand the endemic weakness and vulnerability of the state, it is necessary to move beyond the formal institutions of the state and focus on the far more important dimensions of networks and money, normally referred to as nepotism and corruption, as the foundations on which the state has been built.

The predominant definition of corruption, the “misuse of public power for personal gains,” betrays an understanding of the phenomenon as being analogous to a disease that needs to be cured. However, applying this negative connotation risks failing to capture that corruption in some states is not necessarily best understood as a distortion, but as the essential principle for ordering relations among individuals. In the Kyrgyz state, from the highest echelons of state power to the ordinary “street level” bureaucrat, this is indeed the case. In the absence of sufficient state-paid salaries, meritocratic appointments, strong professional identities and credibly enforced formal rules, corruption is the glue that binds the state together. The state has turned into a marketplace pure and simple.

The major implication of this system is the complete absence of state-provided public goods. Justice and protection supplied by law enforcement agencies are examples of services that are not universal public goods but private goods; access to them requires informal monetary payments. The major question is whether the new leaders have the will or capacity to change this system. Research has demonstrated that corruption tends to be a “sticky” phenomenon: once it has taken root, even if universally condemned as in Kyrgyzstan, it is hard to get rid of.

Agents at the bottom of the system – “street level” tax officials and policemen – believe that most of their colleagues are corrupt, and it is therefore of little use to be the only one to change behavior. While political leaders may have the resources necessary for launching successful anti-corruption measures, they are normally the ones that benefit the most from the system and have few incentives to change it. Thus, despite the massive attention that has been paid to combating corruption around the world during the last decade, the success stories are very few. The only post-Soviet state to successfully combat corruption – Georgia – reinforces the importance of a determined and strong leadership. However, it is most questionable whether the interim government could replicate Georgia’s accomplishments.

CONCLUSIONS: Recent events in Kyrgyzstan provide an opportunity to break with the past and follow a path that would never have been an option under Bakiyev. There are significant challenges ahead. The Kyrgyz state has been trapped in a number of negative spirals. In order to break them the new leadership must come up with strong and determined policies, with the real concerns of the public as their point of departure. It is otherwise likely that the new government will fail too. If anything, the failures of the previous regimes suggest the danger of continuing along the familiar path of the last decade. If the new leaders have learned from the past, the fates of Akayev and Bakiyev should provide deterrence from the worst forms of nepotism and corruption.

The events of April 7 were the second time in five years that a few thousand protesters managed to seize power in Kyrgyzstan. Then as now, the “opposition leaders” rode the wave rather than controlling it. Violent demonstrations appear to have become an accepted method for solving political problems. Needless to say, such practices do not create the conditions necessary for future stability. Indeed, the country runs the risk of becoming trapped into a spiral of permanent instability and a very real risk of state failure.

In this context, there is an external dimension to consider with regard to Kyrgyzstan’s immediate and long-term future. Instability in Kyrgyzstan is not in the interest of the external forces that are closely monitoring current developments. In this context, the bulk of analysis and reports on the events have dwelled on the geopolitical rivalries linked to the presence of both U.S. and Russian military bases in the country, and the increasingly active role Russia seems to be taking in Kyrgyzstan. Far less is said or written concerning the positions of the neighboring countries – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – neither of whom have ever perceived Kyrgyzstan as a particularly legitimate state. If the interim government fails to stabilize the country and if internal conflict becomes endemic, it cannot be excluded that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan could take a much more active role in Kyrgyzstan’s domestic politics. Such scenario could turn Kyrgyzstan into a satellite with limited ability to act as a sovereign state in a meaningful sense with regards to its domestic and foreign affairs. Simply put, Kyrgyzstan could evolve into a state similar to, say, Lebanon or Nepal. Thus, the unfolding of events may hold substantial implications for Kyrgyzstan’s future as a viable sovereign state internally as well as in the eyes of external actors.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Johan Engvall is a Lecturer in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, and a Nonresident Research Fellow with the Institute for Security and Development Policy’s Silk Road Studies Program.