By Brown Political Review<\/p>\n
The Kyrgyz Republic, a small mountainous country in Central Asia, has been through multiple violent revolutions, in both 2005 and 2010.The post-Soviet nation has just been through another revolution, yet of a completely different kind; on October 15th, the nation held its first truly democratic elections, not just in the country\u2019s history, but in that of the\u00a0 region\u2019s. Central Asian states have been notoriously undemocratic since their independence 25 years ago. Since gaining autonomy from the Soviet Union in 1991 the nations have been ruled by strongmen and dictators; Kazakhstan has been ruled by\u00a0President Nazarbayev<\/a>, Tajikistan\u2019s current President, Rahmon, has been in power\u00a0since 1992<\/a>, and\u00a0Turkmenistan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Uzbekistan<\/a>\u00a0have only had two presidents since their original leader passed away. Kyrgyzstan has been an historical outlier amongst\u00a0 these autocracies, having had four acting presidents. Though this election signified the possibility of an unprecedented democratic progress, there is still doubt as to the degree in\u00a0 which this will truly effectuate positive change for the people of the Kyrgyz Republic.<\/p>\n The Kyrgyz election was particularly remarkable in that there was no guarantee as to which of the two major candidates would win: Sooronbay Jeenbekov, the southern candidate from the incumbent\u2019s party went up against the younger northern businessman Omurbek Babanov. Jeenbekov won the election with\u00a054<\/a>% of the popular vote.\u00a0 Both the nation and the region have had a history of\u00a0rigged elections<\/a>, and the implementation of more technologically advanced ballots (a\u00a0biometric verification system<\/a>) was a sign of significant democratic progress. Nevertheless, in spite of this progress, both major candidates were accused of\u00a0buying votes<\/a>. Yet, the most important question concerning electoral fraud is the degree to which the current, outgoing, administration influenced and swayed the vote. President Almazbek Atambayev had spent the latter end of his presidency suppressing dissent, while spurring endless support for Jeenbekov, his ally. He shut down a\u00a0TV station that opposed him, sued popular media outlets for insulting him, and had sentenced political opponents to prison<\/a>. His most prominent competitor, Omurbek Tekebaev, was sentenced to prison for 8 years on the charges of fraud, a move\u00a0 widely regarded as highly\u00a0politically motivated<\/a>. Furthermore, after President Nazarbayev of\u00a0Kazakhstan had met with Babanov in late September,<\/a>\u00a0Atambayev heavily criticised the Kazakh government for interfering in Kyrgyz affairs and labelled Babanov a foreign agent.<\/p>\n This raises the question of what would have happened had the election outcome had been different: President Atambayev\u2019s attempts to maintain his, and his party\u2019s, grip on power had been machiavellian, bordering on desperate. The accusations concerning Kazakhstan\u2019s role in the election are a clear indicator of this; meeting with the head of state of the closest ally of the nation you wish to run is only reasonable. Yet,\u00a0Atambayev\u2019s visit was met with derision and\u00a0 tighter border control between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.<\/a>\u00a0One can speculate that had Jeenbekov lost due to a fair election, Atambayev could have attempted to keep his control of Kyrgyzstan through illegal means, whether hosting re-elections or outright prolonging his term in the administration through force. However, the fact that Babanov had conceded and advocated\u00a0against protest<\/a>\u00a0presents a real precedent for the future of Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia in terms of peaceful transfers of power.<\/p>\n Though the latest Kyrgyz election has been commended for encouraging national and regional democratic progress, there is little else about this transfer of power that is exceptional or worthy of note. The true irony of the Kyrgyz election lies in the fact that the outcome does not have any\u00a0substantive meaning<\/a>for the Kyrgyz Republic; neither of the candidates had particularly different policy proposals or ambitions. Political analyst Marat Kazanov claimed, during the election, that \u201cthe candidates\u2019 manifestos are weak \u2014 they have either been copied from elsewhere, or they don\u2019t have one at all. And nobody reads these things anyway. That\u2019s how we do things.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Indeed, a nation so small runs mostly through connections. Southerners are much more likely to vote for Jeenbekov by virtue of the fact that he\u2019s from the southern capital, Osh. In a country with cultural remains from tribal, nomadic life, one\u2019s familial or even regional relation instantly creates a degree of support.<\/p>\n Additionally, Kyrgyzstan is a country run primarily by its intelligentsia, namely the thousand-some people who went to university in Moscow during the days of the Kyrgyz SSR. A small group that is filled with internal intrigue, resulting in personal relations that heavily influence political decisions. A majority of Kyrgyz private and public institutions are run by these people, resulting in a ripple effect of influence and a system of favor exchanges. Members of the elite class have extensive networks that they manipulate, both socially and monetarily, in order to promote the candidate that has the closest relation them.\u00a0 Corruption like this is not uncommon; in fact, it is expected.<\/p>\n The democratic nature of the latest Kyrgyz election is praiseworthy and revolutionary in of itself; it defied the status quo of violent political turnover and Central Asia\u2019s historical problem with\u00a0 autocratic rule. Yet, this does not mean that Kyrgyzstan\u2019s institutional problems concerning corruption\u00a0 \u2014 and the discrepancy between the upper and lower classes in political influence\u00a0 \u2014 have come any closer to being solved. The fact that no one expects policy change is a further indicator of how this election failed to truly shake up the political landscape and instigate the Kyrgyz population into greater political awareness and activity. Thus, while this election is a success on some level, it is primarily a superficial one; the degree to which it will really affect change in the Kyrgyz Republic can only be known with time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Brown Political Review The Kyrgyz Republic, a small mountainous country in Central Asia, has been through multiple violent revolutions, in both 2005 and 2010.The post-Soviet nation has just been through another revolution, yet of a completely different kind; on October 15th, the nation held its first truly democratic elections, not just in the country\u2019s history, but in that of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}