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Re: FOR COMMENT - KYRGYZSTAN - Volatile past, uncertain future

Released on 2012-10-18 17:00 GMT

Email-ID 5540761
Date 2010-10-04 20:10:35
My two big issues are:
1) Bakiyev was never a powerful leader. There has never been a powerful
leader in the country. I would re-organize this to state that up front &
then use the geography to back you up on that statement... then go into
how the elections will further this divide with how the political parties
are divided from north to south.
2) need more on the Russia angle. Esp with Russian police going there...
they're making the statement that they are controlling the security of
these elections, let alone its politics..... US and others have no say in

Eugene Chausovsky wrote:

*Lots of links and map of the region will be included

Kyrgyzstan will hold parliamentary elections Oct 10, only 6 months after
a country-wide uprising in April drove the former president Kurmanbek
Bakiyev out of power and into exile. With no clear front runner in the
elections, , the Oct. 10 polls will serve as yet another challenge to
the country's ability to hold itself together without plunging back into
chaos. (May want to tweak this... bc the country is in chaos no matter
what) But it is moves made outside of the country, whether through its
neighbors or outside powers like Russia and the US, that will ultimately
determine Kyrgyzstan's fate in the weeks and months ahead.

The past six months since the April uprising in Kyrgyzstan have been
marked by much instability and violence, as the interim government which
supplanted Bakiyev, led by Roza Otunbayeva, has not been able to wield
the political or security power necessary to clamp down and stabilize
the remote Central Asian country. This was clearly demonstrated only 2
months after the revolution, when ethnic clashes between Kyrgyz and
Uzbeks in the southern regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad resulted in
hundreds of deaths and led to the displacement of tens of thousands of
people, primarily Uzbeks, who sought refuge across the border in
Uzbekistan. While a referendum held in late June to establish Kyrgyzstan
as a parliamentary republic (which was the precedent to establish the
upcoming parliamentary elections) passed relatively calmly, the country
has seen regular protests that, among other issues, show public
discontent over a deployment of OSCE security forces as advisers to
Kyrgyz security and police.

The fundamental reasons behind this instability lies within Kyrgyzstan's
geography and demographics. Not only is Kyrgyzstan almost entirely
mountainous with a clan-based society that is split by and scattered
throughout these mountains, but there are substantial minority
populations - particularly in the southern regions within the Fergana
Valley - that do not identify well with faraway Bishkek. These
characteristics virtually guarantee that Kyrgyzstan needs to be ruled by
a strong leadership that has control over the government and security
apparatus in order to exist as a functional and unified country.

But with the ouster of Bakiyev, that strong leadership has been removed
(Bakiyev was only a strong leader in the capital and Osh... & both of
those are questionable.... he tenuously held the country together and
only got that far with an iron fist) , and has been placed - however
nominally and temporarily - in the hands of Otunbayeva, a former foreign
minister who is essentially a caretaker and technocrat without a real
power weilding structure across the country. Otunbayeva has been further
weakened in that several leading figures from the interim government
have left her interim government to run in the polls. All of these
factors complicate the situation in Kyrgyzstan as elections, which will
truly test the country's ability to transition from an authoritative
presidential system to a parliamentary republic.

Symptomatic of these inherent difficulties, there is no political party
that is clearly in the lead with elections less than a week away.
According to STRATFOR sources in Central Asia, the best organized
parties are Social Democrats under Almazbek Atambayev and the White
Falcon party under Temirbek Sariev. These are both northern parties,
which is an important distinction, as Bakiyev's support base is from the
south, and has the potential to disrupt any elements that it deems as
threatening to its position within the country. The south is mainly
behind Ata-Meken under Omurbek Tekebayev and Ata Zhurt under Kamchibek
Tashiev. Two potential wildcards will be Sodruzhestvo's chief Vladimir
Nifadiev - who is the ruler of all security connected to Ferghana, and
Melis Myrzakmatov, the country's richest man who owns significant assets
in Osh. nice

But none of these figures look to be able to dominate the country's
political and security systems following the elections, at least not in
the short term. The absence of that single strong leader indigenously
means that some other power will have to fill the vacuum - and all signs
point to Russia being that power. Russia has been working to boost its
political and military influence in the country following the revolution
- which has links to Moscow in the first place - through a comprehensive
military agreement that, when signed, could unite all of Russia's
military facilities in the country under a single base and command
structure. Also, according to STRATFOR sources, the OSCE security
deployment for the upcoming elections has been agreed by the Kyrgyz
government to be made up primarily of Russian officers, mainly
concentrated in Bishkek and Osh.

While Russia has the upper hand in the country, there are two
neighboring countries that have the ability and potential to influence
the situation on the ground in Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan saw the ethnic
conflict in southern Kyrgyzstan in June as a threat to its interests
more than that... they call it a "genocide" of Uzbeks in Kyrg... serious
accusation, and moved its troops to the border and even considered going
in to protect the Uzbek population there. It was that time that it
became known that Russia sent in paratroopers into Kyrgyzstan, so
Uzbekistan stopped its plans for going into Kyrgyzstan, but it remains a
possibility. Meanwhile, in neighboring Tajikistan, the country has seen
a rise in instability of its own, following a prison outbreak of high
profile Islamist militants in August. These escapees sought refuge in
the Rasht valley, which borders Kyrgyzstan and has the potential of
spilling over militant activity into Kyrgyzstan Don't know if this
second issue matters to the analysis... they don't really have anything
to do with each other.

In addition, there are two other outside powers to consider as well. The
United States has its own military base in northern Kyrgyzstan which
raises the possibility of US involvement, whether direct or indirect, in
Kyrgyz affairs. But Russia has been seeking to deprive the US of
leverage and increase its own, as can be seen by negotiations with the
Kyrgyz government of involving Gazpromneft as a partner in refueling
operations for US aircraft. Another regional power with interests in
Kyrgyzstan is China, but according to STRATFOR sources, Beijing runs
anything it does in the region by Moscow, something which is well known
by every government in Central Asia. This is the paragraph that needs to
be fleshed out....... add in the Russian police coming to Kyrg this
week.... and I'd add a ton more on the Russia angle overall.

Ultimately, Kyrgyzstan will will remain unstable and vulnerable to major
shocks, not so much within the country but primarily from its neighbors
and outside players. The player that will have the most impact on
Kyrgyzstan is Russia. The problem is Russian military power alone -
which even though it is in the process of being increased - does not
guarantee that Kyrgyzstan will completely stabilize, and uncertainties
like ethnic tensions and possibly even militancy will persist. It is up
to Moscow how far it wants to go to try and tackle these problems, but
the underlying tensions that plague Kyrgyzstan will continue to some
degree regardless.

Lauren Goodrich
Senior Eurasia Analyst
T: 512.744.4311
F: 512.744.4334