Finally, someone decided to start a political caricature blog on Kyrgyzstan. Although AKIpress has Beshbarmakia, they had stopped drawing cartoons and focused on the writing by disguising the identities of politicians, businesspeople, and other public figures under funny names.
Zigeunerin, an excellent photo-blogger, took pictures of these random MPs in Kyrgyzstan as they were voting for their fellow colleagues. Regulations allow MPs to vote for their colleagues within the party in their absence. Although all parties enjoy this regulation (seen in a picture below), it was introduced to make it easier for the ruling Ak Jol Party, which is President Bakiev's creation, to pass any bill. Often, only half of 90 MPs are present, but when voting results are announced, it turns out that almost all have voted.
The Kyrgyz people have very short memory. We tend to forget and forgive people, including notorious criminal leaders or corrupt officials, very easily. This short memory is sustained by the system based on lack of reliable information and where any political/economic/social debate is based on rumors. Kulov, for example, was several times pronounced "politically dead," but every time he came back as if nothing had happened. Madumarov is now pronounced "almost dead," but he will come back. The worst thing, however, that can happen to us is that if Askar Akaev comes back... as if nothing has happened.
Vladimir Posner was in Bishkek and I was able to attend two of his events using my alumni network at AUCA. He was invited by the president of AUCA (to the left of VP in the picture. Photo courtesy of murzakimov) as a guest lecturer.
I was interested in listening to a person who was born in France, grew up in the U.S., worked for the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union, and had lost faith in the Communist Part. He admires the U.S., loves Europe, and, it seems, still has hopes for Russia. This is a synopsis of what he said (not verbatim):
More often then never I want to believe that the Kyrgyz police is at least trying to fight crime. However, after I reading this article, my respect for the Kyrgyz police (not for ordinary Joebek the police officer, but for higher-ranking officials, like the minister and his deputies) has plummeted way below the imaginable level.
The article is based on the police report about an "operation to expel" a notorious criminal leader Kamchy Kolbaev, who apparently replaced the late Ryspek.
I have several problems with this report. Firstly, according to the report, the police in Naryn stopped several SUVs, check identities of people, including Kamchy Kolbaev, and let them go. Remember, he is #1 person on the wanted list. (Putting a gun in my mouth). The report also says that two of these SUVs had government license plates, although one of them was on the stolen list. The police did not see a problem with it... and they let criminals go. (I am pulling the trigger.)
However, the dumbest think that the Kyrgyz police can do is to announce that they carried out an operation to expel criminal #1 from Naryn province. Expel where? Naryn borders 4 other Kyrgyz provinces and China in the south. Of course, Kamchy Kolbaev would not be expelled to China. He is expelled to another province, probably to Issykkul, where he is originally from. Why in the hell didn't they arrest the guy? (Blood and brain all over the keyboard.)
So much for fighting crime. Remember the finger and ear case?
Plus, small complaint for AKIpress. It has become very lazy. They stopped asking questions, asking for comments from different sources, basically doing what journalists are be expected to do, but decided to publish press releases/statements as they are. Mostly verbatim.
Monday, May 5, was a holiday in Kyrgyzstan. It was the Constitution Day! Like many people in Kyrgyzstan, I tried to celebrate it, but did not know how. How do you celebrate a constitution that has been re-written 8 times during the 17 years of independence of Kyrgyzstan?
1. May 5, 1993
2. October, 1994
3. February 10, 1996
4. October 17, 1998
5. February 2, 2003
6. November 9, 2006
7. December 30, 2006
8. October 21, 2007
And every new constitution was worse than the previous. For many, it has become just a piece of paper that is used for specific purposes and then thrown into a bin. Politicians are already predicting that Kyrgyzstan will have a new constitution within several years.
Transfer of Üzöngüü-Kuush to China triggered the Aksy events, which then led to the flight of Askar Akaev from Kyrgyzstan on March 24, 2005. The current government might be doing similar mistakes in trying transfer several strips of land and 4 resort centers on the shore of Issyk-Kul to Kazakhstan. This simply becomes ammunition for the opposition, which today is still a weak and diverse group.
The opposition is will hold a kurultay (convention) tomorrow to discuss a number of issues, including tranfers of land to Kazakhstan. As a preparation, the opposition, jointly with some youth activities, held a rally against this yesterday. And of course, the police rounded them up and arrested all of the 50 protesters. Pictures (courtesy of AKIpress and morrire) are belo
My week-long excitement with the gradschool prospects has been overridden by yesterday's comments of Parliament Speaker Adaham Madumarov, also leader of Ak Jol Party, who said that the Central Election Commission does not have to report to anyone on anything, when he was asked why the December 16 elections results have still not been published. These remarks were made on the 100th day of the Ak Jol-controlled parliament.
The Election Code clearly states in Article 77.7 that elections results have be published within 2 weeks after the election day. It is a very bad tendency for the government and the country in general if laws, let alone the rules of the game, are not respected and dismissed by government officials as high as the Speaker of the Parliament.
It is similar to when Zimbabwe's Mugabe did not want to publish elections results, but claimed victory. The different being that Mugabe is getting a lot of regional and international pressure (it was one of top stories in international news), while it seems the world has forgotten about Kyrgyzstan, once known as the "island of democracy."
Yesterday we had a family dinner with parents and relatives. #1 topic of the discussion was Bakiev's absence and his health. Several uncles joined the dinner late and their first questions after joining the dinner was "So, where is Bakiev?" Because there is now clear answer from the government, although ex-Prime Minister Atambaev said he had visited Bakiev in Germany where he had a surgery on his hip, people are making all kinds of speculations.
There are zillions of theories about Bakiev's absence and why he is keeping silence. Theoretically, he could have had the state TV show a pre-recorded tape of him disproving all those rumors about his health or death. If he, in fact, looks really bad (bruises/scars on his face, or looks really pale), the state TV could have aired his voice over the phone. He did not do any of that.
Amazingly, an aunt who had arrived from Nookat, Osh, two days ago said that most people in the south did not know what President Bakiev was absent from the country for almost a month. Only here in Bishkek, she heard this story for the first time. As one journalist from Jalalabad said, there is an informational vacuum in the country. People in the south, for example, have no idea of what is happening here in the north. The government-owned TV stations heavily filters information.
Local news agencies are reporting that Bakiev is landing in Bishkek today in the evening.
Rumors about Bakiev's death spread yesterday around Kyrgyzstan. Several friends and a relative called and asked if it was true. It is #1 story on the Kyrgyz blogosphere and forums. Everyone seemed to be talking about it, especially on the third anniversary of the March 24 "Revolution," when Bakiev replaced Akaev.
Russia's Vremya Novostey wrote yesterday that President is recovering from a surgery on his hip. President's press office made a big mistake. They should have just told on day one that Bakiev would be treated in Germany. The public would feel sorry about him. Instead, the public is now waiting for those rumors to be true.
As for the March 24, personally I've been referring to those events as simply the March 24 events. Not a revolution, not a coup d'etat. It was a revolt, but not a revolution. Revolutions result in fundamental changes of political, economic, or social systems. We did not have any of that. One family replaced another family. The whole system stayed the same. Here is a story from RFE/RL on this issue.
Everyone in Kyrgyzstan is talking about President Bakiev's wellbeing. He he has not returned from a vacation from Germany where he left on March 3. Silence and half-truths coming from President's press office and contradicting information coming from various top government officials on reason of his long absence became the cause of all kinds of rumors about President's health. Initially, his press office said that the president went on a vacation, not hospitalization or surgery, for two weeks to Germany, where his younger brother serves as the Kyrgyz Ambassador.
Now that the President has been missing in action for three weeks and his Chief of Staff said today that the President will return only at the end of next week, making him absent for four weeks - he will miss the March 21 Nooruz and March 24 Revolution Day celebrations with parades and fireworks - more or less everyone believes that he is seriously ill. Rumors have that he has problems with his kidneys or liver, while some ill-wishers believe he has been wounded in an armed argument within his family. This silence, fed by different rumors, is worrying.
Yesterday youth activists organized a flash-mob against the Kyrgyz government. They put on masks of sheep and one of them put a mask of a bull and wore boxing gloves.
The legitimacy of state institutions is taking another blow as the the people of Aksy, Jalalabad, are holding alternative court trials in relation to the killing of 6 people during the demonstration on March 17, 2002. It is a worrying tendency as people are losing trust in everything the state is doing lately.
Six years passed since the police opened fire at unarmed demonstrators, which triggered a chain of demonstrations and protest rallies leading to the March 2005 events when ex-President Akaev fled the country. Verdicts issued by official courts convicting several policemen of excessive use of force did not satisfy people of Aksy as they think that they officials sitting the White House, not the policemen, are the real culprits. The highest official charged and sentenced to 5 years of suspended imprisonment is the ex-Governor of Jalalabad Sultan Urmanaev.
The court with 21 judges, 3 from each of 7 provinces of Kyrgyzstan (I am not sure how they are elected), will hear the public prosecutors charging dozens of people, including the ex-President Akaev, the current president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, ex-Minister of Interior, ex-Chief of Staff, and many other former and current government officials.
The opposition already created an alternative parliament, because they do not recognize the legitimacy of current Parliament controlled by president's Ak Jol Party (71 out of 90 seats). And don't forget that the official election results have not been published since December 16, 2007. Very few people trust the judiciary and the police in general. To enforce their verdict, the Aksy people will have to start their own alternative law enforcement, a vigilante-style police, from locals and arming them. It is not too far from electing an alternative president.
I have a feeling that majority of people already live in an alternative Kyrgyzstan, a parallel country, where they do not want to have anything to do with the state. They don't pay taxes, don't use public transportation, receive miserable pensions, and live their own life.
If you have seen the Soviet movie "Kavkazskaya Plennitsa" you will appreciate the excellent parody to this move. The original conversation from the movie is about a bride-kidnapping tradition in one of the countries in the Caucasus. However, a team of stand-up comedians in a competition (KVN) remade it into a conversation where Dmitriy Medvedev is being convinced to participate in an ancient tradition of "presidential election." I hope you enjoy it!
Viewers from Kyrgyzstan can watch the movie here.
Actually, very few people would call it election. Russians are being given a chance to "approve"Putin's choice. After all, we are all democratic.
Back in 2000, when Boris Yeltsin resigned, the western press wrote "Putin Was Put In" as a word play. During the following eight years newspaper headlines in Russia read "Doubling GPD" or "GDP Growth" where GDP in Russian is VVP (ВВП) - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Starting from this year, the Russians will give toasts to ladies ("to ladies" in Russian is "za DAM" - Dmitriy Anatolievich Medvedev). By the way, the 8th of March Women's Day is coming up.
Armenian elections results showed that leaders of ex-Soviet republics have complete disregard for democracy as a process. Democracy has become such a hackneyed word that it has lost meaning to most people, especially to the leaders, in Central Asia. In fact, the word democracy has come to mean instability, corruption, moral degradation, and all the negative consequences of "transition."
Look at the last elections in Central Asia. In Kazakhstan, president's Nur-Otan party won all the seats in the parliament. Nazarbaev also changed the constitution to stay as long as he wishes. In Uzbekistan, Karimov won in an election where two of his opponents actually said that Karimov should remain the president and voted for him. Of course, the fact that the Uzbek constitution had a limit of only 2 terms for one person did not matter. In Kyrgyzstan, president's Ak-Jol party won most of the seats in the parliament, but nobody, even the Central Election Commission, can explain how it happened. Two months passed since the December 16 election, but the results have still not been published. In Tajikistan, the situation is similar. Turkmenistan is a separate case. And, all the presidents claimed elections were democratic.
I am really hooked on reading newly-elected MPs' portfolios, published by most of the Kyrgyz newspapers. Because the way the last parliamentary elections went in Kyrgyzstan, I am only now learning about our new MPs. They are asked standard questions from place of birth to past experience to sport interests. And one of the questions is about their political idol. A sizable majority of them name Vladimir Putin as their idol. Of course, Kurmanbek Bakiev is also mentioned, but less frequently than Putin. Popularity of Russian TV in Kyrgyzstan and the fact the Putin is always portrayed as the savior of Russia (Tsar?) is the only explanation here.
Here and there people are talking about possible Presidential elections. But, before the elections are held, it is expected that the Parliament, controlled by President's Ak Jol Party, will make changes to the Constitution (4th in 2 years!) and extend president's term in office from 5 to 7 years. Then elections can be held, possibly in summer.
The thinking is that why wait till 2010, when you can "win" today and remain president till 2015. And, it will be the first term. New constitution, new term! Then, the government can go ahead with privatization of big state companies: electricity, gas, heating, and telecommunications.
Crime has become a big issue in Kyrgyzstan. It is not just petty crime, but more like Italian mafia-style crime. It is everywhere, in business, in politics. Two South Korean businessman, involving in installing proper public transportation (buses), were beaten up and were told to leave the country. After the Soviet Union, our public transportation collapsed and was replaced by marshrutkas (Russian for vans), a horrible post-Soviet imitation of public transportation.
However, another a much bigger event, but less covered in the media, although widely talked about, is the delivery of an amputated ear and a finger to a very high government official. None of the Kyrgyz media named the official, but everyone is saying it is the President's Chief of Staff, Meder Sadyrkulov. There are all the reasons to believe it is true. According to the rumors, the ear and the finger removed from a bum, whose body was found outside Bishkek, were brought as a New Year present to Mr. Sadyrkulov's house.
10 days passed since the election day, but nobody has seen the results. The Central Election Commission has not published them , but it already distributed all the 90 seats to the Ak Jol (71 seats), Social Democrats (11), and Communist (8). With elections conducted in the worst way, one thinks that results are being drawn up to match the distribution of seats. Even the CEC website is disabled. One more thing, I should have ticked 'against all' on the ballot paper. Very much disappointed with the party I voted for.
