Party time
One of the emails that I received this week thanked me for the weekly postcard that I send out giving a review of the weeks events here in Kyrgyzstan, but the writer admitted that they were rather confused as to to who was who and the positions taken by the various parties in our recent election. She asked me if I could spread some light on these questions.
This is the reply that I sent:
First of all, although I am happy to try and answer your questions, I need to stress that that whereas I can offer some observations, they are just that – observations, and anything I say cannot be taken as definitive. I often say when the topic comes up in conversation that ”I don’t do politics” … There are many reasons for this, for example: all, as a foreigner I have no say or role in local politics … secondly, it’s all in Russian or Kyrgyz, and there may well be some connotations that I misread or misunderstand … then, as the situation is considerably influenced by personalities, I am at a disadvantage because I don’t know many of the leading players, … also, it is influenced by regional issues and as I am based in Bishkek, so miss out on many important insights.
Actually, it’s difficult to talk about the parties – the discussion during the campaign didn’t focus a lot on issues. There were common themes to all parties. For example, the questions of restoring order and, (as the slogan common in Akaev’s time put it) “Kyrgyzstan – our common home” (Kyrgyzstan, nash obshe dom), were prominent in the campaign materials of most, if not all, of the parties. (Even the more “nationalistic” parties.) There were a few areas where they could be clearly differentiated, however, and mainly on their attitude towards the new constitution and relationships with Russia. (Ata Jurt, Ar Namys and Butun Kyrgyzstan prefering a return to a Presidential as opposed to a Parliamentary system of government – SDPK, Ata Meken and Akshumkar favouring the new approach.)
The parties are mainly dominated and discriminated from each other by personalities rather than policies. Most of the posters, leaflets, etc. concentrated on the leaders rather than policies. Although the leader featured as a figurehead to identify the party in most campaign ads, posters. leaflets, clips, etc., this was often extended to include a selection of the more prominent party members to indicate depth and breadth of party strength and support. In many cases the individuals were featured in uniform to add gravitas rather than taking the “down to earth” approach much used by Western politicians such as Obama and Blair.
Ata Jurt is run by a number of people who used to be associated with the Bakiev regime – hence the opposition to them by groups such as the relatives of those who died on April 7th. They also tend to be the more nationalistic, having made comments about the “titular” nation – the Kyrgyz … this is Kyrgyzstan – and how they must not be in a worse position than other nationalities in the country.
The SDPK, for example, is run by Almaz Atambaev, a local businessman who seems to have made a fortune sometime around the break up of the Soviet Union. There seems to be some questions about this. One Russian site, for example, slammed into him and how he apparently gained his fortune. Their approach seems to be more associated with economic progress – although they have also tried the theme of order as opposed to chaos. Atambaev has made several pro Russian statement and has been to Russia several times in the recent period. Atambaev has several things going against him – having worked in the Bakiev regime, as a Minister, he left the government to join the opposition – only to “desert” it when Kulov left the government, becoming the Prime Minister. When his turn came to depart from high office, he rejoined the opposition once more – eventually becoming their united candidate to oppose Bakiev in the 2009 election. There is some comment, I am not sure how true it is, that he was chosen for this role simply because he was the only one able to afford the campaign expenses. However, on the eve of the election, when it was clear how things were going to turn out, he announced that he was withdrawing and urged the people not to participate in the election – which some people in the opposition seem to have seen as another betrayal.
(Otunbaeva was a member of the SDPK, but resigned when she became President. Oddly enough, before joining the SDPK she founded a part called Ata Jurt … I don’t if this is the same one that took the lead in the election or if it was wound up and they simply took over the name …)
Ar Namys was founded and is run by Feliks Kulov, and their campaign was closely associated with him – although it did feature a wide variety of people … The party seemed to try and present itself as NOT being a “one man band”, but he still took a domineering place in the campaign materials. His background is law enforcement, and their campaign has strongly featured the issue of law and order. It is basically pro-Russian in its outlook and he has been to Moscow several times in the recent past - some campaign materials featured heavily photos of him with Medvedev. Much has made of the fact that Kulov worked with Bakiev, running in Tandem with him as the candidate for Prime Minister in the 2005 election – later losing his post in what looked like it might have been a specially constructed scheme to remove him.
The Respulica Party is headed by Babanov who served as a Deputy Prime Minister under Bakiev – but resigned when their was a reshuffle in the government which seemed to sideline him. As a businessman, he has a “business friendly” agenda, but seems to have “sat on the fence” over things like the relationship with Russia.
Ata Maken, run by Tekebaev, is said to be socialist. Tekebaev was a strong critic of both Akaev and Bakiev – and although he became speaker of the parliament at one time – the Bakiev regime seem to have framed him over the Matrushka doll stuffed with heroin when he went on a delegation to Poland. They are basically one of the prime movers of the new constitution establishing the Parliamentary Republic. Although Tekebaev has made statements about the future of relationships with Russia but Russian TV ran reports about video tapes of him with an unknown woman – where he is naked, and his face seems fairly clear in several shots. There’s some doubt about the age and source of these clips, but airing the news report brought some heavy criticism of Russia trying to influence the result of the election by discrediting one of the candidates who is less friendly towards them.
The smaller parties who didn’t get any seats are also closely associated with individuals – Ashkumar, for example with Sariev, who has been acting as Finance Minister (and he may well end up occupying that post in the new government even though his party didn’t gain any seats in the parliament).
Butun Kyrgyzstan (United Kyrgyzstan) is closely associated with Madumarov who worked with both of the former regimes, but did well under Bakiev, until a row over renovating the Parliament building led to him leaving office. One again, he is opposed to the new constitution and pro Russian.
Aikol El is a party established by Edil Baisalov especially to fight the election. The party boasts that its candidates are young and have no connection with the former regimes … however, it is basically associated with just Baisalov, who is a self confessed “democrat” and agitator. They didn’t come anywhere near the threshold in order to get seats. Oddly enough, he says they did better in Naryn than expected – indeed, he never went to Naryn during the campaign. My gut feeling is that he is an ideologue and not a politician or statesman – at least not at this time. He is, however, probably the closest to the West in his outlook.
The other two parties that probably have ideological positions are the Greens and the Communists … but there’s probably not much more to be said about that.
The geographical distribution of party support is also important. The whole idea of the thresholds was to avoid small, local or regional parties, and to try and enforce “national” parties to emerge. Bakiev seems to have used this mechanism to squash opposition in order for his party, Ak Jol, to maintain supremacy – but the drafters of the new constitution carried the idea over – along with quotas for women and ethnic groups in the candidate list (and the ceiling on the maximum number of seats a single party could gain). If it was intended that these mechanisms would avoid a plethora of parties contesting the election – it failed.
One reason, in hindsight, is that any government needs 60+ seats, so it was almost inevitable for there to be a need for a coalition of like minded parties – hence the need for lots of parties to contest the election. Probably, the SDPK, Ata Meken and Ashkumar thought that they would have enough to make a government – but they didn’t take into account the strength of the “opposition” – especially after the June events.
In all events, Ata Jurt should have performed strongly in the South – and possibly in Bishkek where there is a large contingent of like minded people who travelled to the North, especially after the 2005 revolution. What is surprising is that did so well in places like Talas and Naryn, which are the strongholds of other parties. Maybe they really did reach out to, and convince, the population with their appeal to Kyrgyz national feeling and their apparent experience. Then again, the regional threshold, (half a percent of the votes cast) was not that high. There has been some suggestions of “vote rigging” – bussing people, use of false documents, bribery, and so on. I have seen comments that “all” parties were guilty of malpractice – but the main thing as far as the observers were concerned seems to be that there was not enough evidence to prove the case. On the other hand, even if there was malpractice, the process has been deemed a success and both “free and fair” in that there was a lack of “government” or “official” “interference”.
If they have all been involved in malpractice, then that would support that I have seen in one analysis which says that many people feel that nothing will change anyway – politicians are all alike and mainly look after themselves … which is probably fair comment the whole world over.
Another issue which might have played a role is that of experience”. Member of Ata Jurt and Butun, both have a wealth of experience in government – which is something that, for example, some other parties like Aikol El lacked. The opposition parties do have people with experience, but they also have a long history of differences between themselves …
The best place to go for primary information about the parties is www.parties.kg … which has a number of useful pages – in Russian, but I use Google Chrome which provides a fair on-line translation of pages – and a variety of clips. There are some other sites with clips, but you’ll end up having to sort through several pages.
Bishkek