President Sets Date for Legislative Election, Lifts Curfew in Southern Kyrgyzstan

Return to Normality

Two months after declaring a state of emergency and curfew in the southern Osh, Djalal-Abad and Uzgen regions yesterday, President Roza Otunbayeva lifted these special measures at midnight on 9-10 August. The measures were imposed on 10 June after ethnic violence erupted between ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks on the one hand and Kyrgyz on the other. The five days of bloody clashes left about 2,000, mainly Uzbeks, dead and turned some 400,000 into refugees, most of whom have since returned.

Otunbayeva signed another decree yesterday setting 10 October as the date for the extra–term parliamentary election that will create the first 120-mandate Kyrgyz legislature as set out by the 27 June constitutional referendum (see Kyrgyzstan - Uzbekistan: 28 June 2010: Kyrgyzstan Becomes First Parliamentary Republic in Central Asia).The first female leader of a Central Asian former Soviet republic has instructed in her decree to the Kyrgyz Central Elections Committee "to ensure free, fair and transparent elections in compliance with the republic's legislation" and the government "to allocate the necessary funds" to hold the election. Kyrgyzstan does not currently have a parliament as it was disbanded shortly after the popular uprising swept away authoritarian president Kurmanbek Bakiyev during the revolution of 6-16 April 2010. Following his ousting, the revolutionary 13-member caretaker government refused to accept the legitimacy of the parliament which was largely made up of deputies from the pro-presidential Ak-Zhol Party, and had been nothing but a rubber-stamping body for Bakiyev.

Too Soon, Too Optimistic?

Veteran politician and revolutionary Otunbayeva is keen to put behind her the chaos and bloodshed of the past four months and move all political and ethnic debates from the streets into the new parliament. Despite fears and open calls for caution expressed earlier by monitors from international organisations, she pressed ahead with a constitutional referendum on 27 June laying the legal basis of the new parliament. The referendum was supported by over 90% of participating voters, who also simultaneously backed Otunbayeva as the country's provisional president until 31 December 2011. Otunbayeva's vision is to create the first parliamentary republic in the former Soviet Central Asia and close the loopholes that any political leader or party may try to use in the future to usurp the revolutionary power and return Kyrgyzstan to its authoritarian past. According to the new constitution, the new legislature will have 120 seats unlike the previous one which had 90 mandates and no party will have the right to hold more than 65 mandates. Capping mandates is designed to prevent any party from having the two-thirds of the vote necessary for constitutional changes. The parliament will have authority to form a government, a new power that previously belonged to the strong presidential office created by Bakiyev. The president will still have a say on matters of national importance and also nominate cabinet members, but the new parliament will be the key decision-making body in the country.

Against this optimistic backdrop, the situation in the capital Bishkek and the south remains unstable. Some opposition leaders are still tempted to take advantage of Otunbayeva's weak rule and take power through new protests. Thus only on 5 August the peaceful protest by the supporters of former presidential candidate Urmat Baryktabasov, the leader of the Meken Tuu party—opposing Otunbayeva's rule—escalated into a violent clash with riot police. The caretaker Kyrgyz interior minister Kubat Baibolov quickly moved to arrest Baryktabasov and 27 of his supporters who face charges of a coup d'état by Baryktabasov's armed followers (see Kyrgyzstan: 6 August 2010: Opposition Leader Arrested After Clashing with Protestors in Kyrgyz Capital). Baryktabasov's failed attempt to force the authorities to drop previous criminal charges against him by ferrying his supporters from his power base in the eastern Lake Issyk-Kul region serves as an example of the tactics often used by clan leaders trying to enter politics.

While the provisional president's decision to lift the curfew in the southern regions may be a sign of the improving situation, reports are indicating the contrary. Even Otunbayeva admitted in her recent interview with the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that since the ethnic clashes in mid-June there have been a number of instances of mistreatment of ethnic Uzbeks by predominantly Kyrgyz security forces. She confirmed that local police has been conducting sweeps for weapons mainly in Uzbek neighbourhoods and some of them have resulted in the arrests of scores of young Uzbeks and in the village of Nariman, in two deaths. Otunbayeva's reluctant admittance of the persecution is further and better documented by observers from international organisations who have since raised the alarm about the scale of ethnic Uzbeks' continued harassment.

The provisional government has thus far tried to play down the depth of the animosity between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities and rather concentrate on positive trends such as the return of refugees and general calm in the region. However, these could be misleading reasons for Otunbayeva's and her team's optimism. Firstly, the refugees had little choice but to return since neighbouring Uzbekistan closed its border with Kyrgyzstan, fearing destabilisation of the security situation within its own borders. Furthermore, the refugees were warned by Kyrgyz local authorities that they may lose their properties if they fail to return. Secondly, the southern regions, especially Osh, remain under the control of supporters of the previous regime who are not likely to relinquish their power to Otunbayeva but rather will try to run the region with a certain degree of autonomy. Unsurprisingly, the central government's decision to allow the deployment of 50-100 police monitors from member countries of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been met by angry protests.

Outlook and Implications

Kyrgyzstan is treading a fine line between becoming a leading model of democracy for former Soviet republics and descending into more political turmoil of coups and ethnic clashes. Otunbayeva's skills as a politician and a leader of all Kyrgyz citizens, including ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Russians, are yet to be tested. It is unclear if she will be able to strike a deal with the southern pro-Bakiyev clan and at the same time be brave enough to face the truth about the violence against ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan where allegedly ethnic Kyrgyz members of police and army sent to help the Uzbeks had joined the attackers. While lifting the curfew will help the southern regions return to some sort of normality, it is unclear how the government is planning to implement new security measures, bring to justice members of police and army implicated in the mid-June ethnic attacks on Uzbeks and stop the one-sided disarming of Uzbeks if it does not have control over the region.

If Otunbayeva and her team agree on terms of power-sharing with the powerful southern clan at the expense of putting a lid on the Uzbek grievances and investigations into killings, this may calm the situation in the short term. However this tactics will backfire in the future and the tension may erupt into yet another ethnic conflict, perhaps even triggered by the persecuted Uzbeks. On conclusion can be safely made—given the dire state of the economy as well as the precarious situation in the south, Kyrgyz politicians cannot afford another coup or revolution in coming months.