SPECIAL ELECTIONS IN KYRGYZSTAN (part second)

Kyrgyzstan election: usual bad practices and lack of charismatic leader

BISHKEK (TCA) — A few days ago I was in the South of Kyrgyzstan and visited Osh, Uzgen, and Jalal-Abad. The main topic of all conversations — from taxi drivers to chaikhana frequenters — is the upcoming parliamentary election on October 4 and who is going to get a majority and how this or that party and their political leaders will perform. SDPK, the party of President Atambayev, seems to be the favorite, followed by Ata Meken with its leader Mr. Tekebayev. This year the great innovation is the introduction of a biometric system under which all voters should register themselves, but the idea has created a lot of disappointment and faced criticism from political parties, NGOs and ordinary citizens. Only citizens who have done their biometric registration (including fingerprints) — there are around 2.6 million such citizens — are entitled to vote. In the past multiple and false votes were quite commonplace — just remember the 2010 scandal with the Butun Kyrgyzstan party when about 100,000 votes appeared out of nowhere, which led to the party’s exclusion from the Parliament. With about 2.6 million biometrically registered voters it appears that a large number of potential voters were not registered and consequently cannot vote, which may generate disputes and unrest.

Advertising in the streets started a month before the election date. Although several parties were active in private meetings and unregistered promotion, there were no rallies and mass gatherings, and everything was quiet and without problems. Looking at the billboards of the different parties in the streets we cannot say that there is much creativity in designing posters or bringing the parties’ programs to the knowledge of the people. Some parties even have web sites that have not been updated from 2010. The posters mainly depict each party with a group of candidates, to show their teamwork, with images resembling Soviet-era photos of standing bureaucrats. There is a lack of women in the proposed teams. No smiles, just to confirm the country is not going through a good time, and a lot of old faces. If the biometric registration is certainly an innovation, the system has not really changed: people are still buying and selling votes, potential candidates still pay large amounts of money to be listed, activists are still going around promising this and that while knowing very well that many things cannot be done. There is a price list for everything: village folk can sell their votes for 1,000 som each. The more votes an activist brings in, the more chances he or she will be rewarded in case the party succeeds in securing some seats in the Parliament.

Potential candidates would pay huge amounts of money to be listed. A number two place in a party list may cost up to one million dollars and may carry the promise to become a Minister, while prices for being listed among the top ten candidates vary between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dollars. All depends on the size of the party and the chances to be elected. It is a sort of investment operation that as any other investment carries its percentage of risk, and here personal relations and the amount of money contributed play a very big role. The money paid is generally split into two parts — 50 percent goes to the party for the political campaign, promotion, advertising, buying votes, and the other 50 percent is administered and under the control of the party leader. Of course the purchase of billboards or TV and radio airtime will be official, but this is certainly the smallest part of the expenses of during the election campaign. Given the number of parties taking part in the election and more than 100 deputies to be elected and ready to pay, the amount of money is quite sizable.

A peculiar feature of Kyrgyz elections is the fact that less than two weeks before the election date not all parties are able to complete their programs or bring their strategies and plans to the attention of the voters. The matter looks like a family affair with many promises and no concrete steps, with no strategy or plan properly considered, leaving all steps and decisions to the future.

Each party has its front man (generally an old face from among politicians or businessmen), but in actual fact not one party is able to introduce a charismatic leader, as though such type of person does not exist in Kyrgyzstan or, if it exists, it is not given the possibility to emerge. The country is ruled by professional politicians of the Soviet school or by new young leaders that have made their career and money due to corruption and shadow business. Although much has changed in Kyrgyzstan over the last ten years due to two revolutions and several governments, the money language and the people are always the same. They recycle themselves, keep promising and revisiting old plans but their implementation remains very slow and the results are poor or nonexistent.

Whatever the result of the upcoming election, the country will continue with the past policy and radical reforms will not be introduced. People are full of disillusion and despair, they are tired of revolutions and instability, and they have to continue living by the day with little confidence that the situation is going to change. Migration will continue, little employment will be created, private foreign direct investment will be very limited and the shadow economy will expand (mainly in the construction sector). If some investment will come it will be mainly in the infrastructural sector due to foreign donors’ support, while agriculture and mining will suffer a setback, and abuse of power and corruption will continue expanding.

Kyrgyzstan badly needs fundamental reforms and turning away from the shadow economy, but the current international situation will not help and Kyrgyzstan’s politics will continue to be determined by somebody’s clout and private interest, both at home and abroad.

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