Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution: Interview with Roza Otunbayeva

INTERVIEW WITH ROZA OTUNBAYEVAIn Russia and the West, the scholarly and journalistic communities have been reluctant to accord the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan the same status as the earlier revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Commentators point to the absence in Kyrgyzstan of a single leader who could personify the opposition, such as a Saakashvili or a Yushchenko. They also argue that popular protests in Kyrgyzstan were less disciplined and organized than those in Georgia and Ukraine. Yet, in most respects, the overthrow of the regime in Bishkek closely followed the pattern established in Tbilisi and Kiev. In all three countries, a deeply flawed election represented the final act of delegitimization of an entrenched ruling elite; the incumbent president refused to employ the full force of state power against the demonstrators and society itself was sufficiently self-confident to demand leaders who would fight corruption and respond to the economic and symbolic interests of the population. As Acting Foreign Minister Otunbayeva argues in this interview, the Tulip Revolution has every right to take its place alongside the Rose and Orange revolutions in what some have called the fourth wave of democratization.The majority view may be correct, however, in its assertion that the challenges facing Kyrgyzstan are even greater than those confronting Ukraine and Georgia. First, the regional divisions that separate the ethnic Kyrgyz into northern and southern factions are more potent than the sectionalism that divides the ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Georgians. It was not inevitable that the longstanding cultural differences between the more Russified north and the more traditional south would acquire a political coloration. That resulted in large measure from President Akaev's neglect of the south for more than a decade, which led some to note that Kyrgyzstan had abandoned Communism for Keminism (Kemin being Akaev's native region in the north). It was no surprise, then, that the Tulip Revolution had its origins in the discontented south. It was also no surprise that the two most prominent leaders of the opposition-Kurmanbek Bakiev of the south and Felix Kulov of the north-decided not to compete against each other for the winner-take-all presidential race. Instead, they reached an electoral pact in which Kulov agreed to support Bakiev for the presidency in exchange for the post of prime minister.The second hurdle facing Kyrgyzstan flows directly from the powersharing arrangement between the new president, Bakiev, and his prime minister, Kulov. In Kyrgyzstan, as in most countries with semipresidential regimes, the president traditionally assumes direct responsibility for the power ministries and issues of national security, while the prime minister concentrates on economic affairs. However, in the current Kyrgyz leadership, the president has the expertise and experience in economic policy, whereas the prime minister has a background as a silovik. The issue here is not so much a lack of professional qualifications but rather the network of allies that the president and prime minister will have in each other's sectors of the bureaucracy. Taken together with the desire of Bakiev to replace northern incumbents in the country's administrative and political elite with new faces from the south, this awkward reversal of the traditional backgrounds of president and prime minister has already produced a period of intense struggle over the responsibilities and spoils of office. Given the popularity of Kulov in the north, it will almost certainly be more difficult for Bakiev to remove his prime minister from office than it was for Yushchenko to remove Timoshenko in Ukraine.Finally, Kyrgyzstan's geography is especially unfavorable for democratic development. Like Georgia, another small country with unstable or undemocratic neighbors, Kyrgyzstan is vulnerable to the pressures of the more powerful states in its region. Whereas Georgia has to be concerned about Russian interference in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Ajaria, Kyrgyzstan must worry about the economic and political pressure applied by Uzbekistan as well as the spread of radical Islam. …