What’s Next for Kyrgyzstan?

Voters in Kyrgyzstan will head back to the polls, eventually.

The parliamentary elections conducted on October 4 were deemed by some Kyrgyz politicians to have been the dirtiest elections in the country’s nearly 30-year history. Of 16 parties that contested the election, only four cleared the 7 percent threshold to get into parliament. Of the four, two parties – Birimdik and Mekenim Kyrgyzstan – captured nearly 50 percent of the vote, an unprecedented and deeply suspicious victory.

Protests on October 5 brought down the government before the sun rose on October 6, when the election results were annulled. In a whirlwind month, Kyrgyzstan has seen protests, resignations, and a new government emerge.

The legitimacy of the new government formed by Prime Minister and Acting President Sadyr Japarov, who was in prison on election day, remains an open question, but Japarov’s government will have an opportunity to prove itself by confronting the problems that made the October 4 elections such a disaster.

It appeared Japarov’s government was prepared to try. On October 21 the Central Election Commission (CEC) named December 20 as the date for repeat parliamentary elections, but the next day parliament canceled the CEC decision. Voting was put off possibly until the start of June, though Japarov later said parliamentary elections would happen before March. Another decision parliament made on October 22 was that constitutional reforms should be implemented by January 10, 2021. Then, on October 24, police raided the CEC office and carried away documents; somehow that same day the CEC announced a presidential election was scheduled for January 10, 2021.

Japarov, as acting president, is technically ineligible to run for president, but he announced on October 26 that he would step down as acting president and prime minister at the start of December to run for president “as an ordinary citizen.” The legality of that move is still being debated. Meanwhile, the CEC as of October 26 was saying it will fight the decision to move parliamentary elections from December 20.

If he expects to be elected president Japarov will have to work to form alliances with at least some of the opposition groups that took part in the elections and were the major force in bringing down the government. He’ll also need to implement measures to show the international community he can be a responsible and reliable leader.

The most common violations mentioned ahead of the October 4 elections were vote-buying and use of administrative resources, a post-Soviet euphemism for candidates and parties using their official positions and connections for electoral benefit.

As early as June, parliamentary deputy Janar Akayev was warning that some political parties were discussing the “best way to give out $50 to people in villages, and because most don’t have any dollars in hand, seeing this money they will vote for them…”

There were many other such stories, although the amount of money was lower. The eventual vote-buying was often brazen. One woman in a village outside Bishkek said representatives of a party, which she declined to name, were going “to each home” offering residents 2,000 som (about $25) for their votes.

Form No. 2 was involved in many of these cases. Form No. 2 was first used in the presidential election of 2011. Its goal was to make it easier for internal migrant laborers to vote by allowing them to cast their ballots at whatever polling station was most convenient for them. They only needed to bring their personal identification documents and register at the polling station of their choice. There was a report about one woman changing polling stations 21 times using Form No. 2.

Kaktus.media, an independent Kyrgyz news website, reported in late August that on August 19 to 21, from 5 p.m. local time until nightfall, vans had been shuttling people to and from School No. 47 in Bishkek, which was also the site of polling station No. 1047, apparently so they could register in that district. In essence, Form No. 2 became an opportunity to gerrymander the vote.

Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission released figures toward the end of September that revealed that of 3.52 million eligible voters, about 450,000 inside Kyrgyzstan had registered to vote using Form No. 2, compared to some 315,000 who did so for the presidential election in 2017.

On October 22, the Kyrgyz parliament voted to abolish the use of Form No. 2.

That should cut down on vote-buying, but it is unclear if the party most often mentioned for this violation before the last elections – Mekenim (My Homeland) Kyrgyzstan – will even participate in the next parliamentary election, whenever that is.

The use of administrative resources may prove tougher to fix before the next elections.

Administrative resources can be used in many ways: access to state television and radio, obtaining permission to hold rallies at public venues, statements of support from top officials, or pressure on state employees to vote for a particular candidate or party or else face problems at the workplace or even dismissal.

There were reports in particular about schoolteachers and school directors being visited by local officials or phoned by higher-level officials and instructed to vote for a specific party.

Most of these claims led back to the Birimdik (Unity) party. President Sooronbay Jeenbekov’s brother Asylbek was a candidate in that party. And Jeenbekov, whose term was due to end in 2023 before he resigned on October 15, must have considered that two previous presidents  of Kyrgyzstan were chased from power and a third, Jeenbekov’s predecessor Almazbek Atambayev, is in prison.

Current parliamentary deputy Dastan Bekeshev has called for Mekenim Kyrgyzstan and Birimdik, and also the Kyrgyzstan party – all of which topped results in the now-annulled October 4 polls – to be banned from competing.

Kaktus.media asked the parties that competed in the October 4 elections if they planned on participating in the next polls. Eleven, all opposition parties, said they planned on taking part, but Mekenim Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyzstan party, and Birimdik “have not reported yet about their plans for repeat elections in December.” (At the time the parties were asked, the parliamentary elections were looking likely to be scheduled for December 20.)

The Kaktus.media report noted, “It is namely these three parties that are accused of buying votes and therefore there are calls not to allow them into the repeat elections.”

One of the parties that did say it would compete in December is the Mekenchil (Patriotic) party.

Mekenchil was founded in 2010 by Sadyr Japarov, although he ran, and won a seat, in the October 2010 parliamentary elections as a candidate from the Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) party.

In October 2012, Japarov, Kamchybek Tashiyev, and Talant Mamytov, all deputies from the Ata-Jurt party, led a protest outside the White House in Bishkek. They were calling for the nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine, a Canadian-run project in Japarov’s home region of Issyk-Kul that has been Kyrgyzstan’s biggest money-making business since the late 1990s. They and their supporters attempted to storm the government building. Japarov, Tashiyev, and Mamytov were convicted in March 2013 of trying to overthrow the government. They were sentenced to 18 months in prison each.

All three were released in July that year, following a raucous trial in which they were acquitted after their supporters assaulted the judges during a court session. However, their deputy mandates were suspended.

In October 2013, Japarov was involved in protests against the Kumtor gold mine in the town of Karakol, on the far eastern shore of Issyk-Kul. His supporters took the provincial governor hostage, a kidnapping for which Japarov was held responsible and charged. He fled the country.

Japarov was detained along the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border in March 2017. He was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 11.5 years in prison (later reduced to 10 years on appeal). He was serving that sentence when protests at the results of the October 4 parliamentary elections erupted. In the early morning of October 6, protesters freed Japarov from his prison cell. Other notable jailed politicians at the time were also released – including Atambayev and Sapar Isakov – but all but Japarov were returned to prison within the week.

The leader of Mekenchil during the campaign for the October 4 elections was Kamchybek Tashiyev, whom Japarov – by October 15 officially prime minister – appointed to be head of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) on October 16.

Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections are held using party lists, with a 7 percent national threshold in place for a party to win any seats in the October 4 election. Only four parties – Birimdik, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyzstan party, and Butun Kyrgyzstan – crossed the 7 percent threshold and received seats. Had the results of the elections stood, the three pro-government parties (Mekenim Kyrgyzstan, Birimdik, and the Kyrgyzstan party) would have taken 107 of the 120 seats in parliament.

On October 22, in the same extraordinary session in which parliament abolished the use of Form No. 2, it voted to lower the threshold to 3 percent.

That change means more parties will likely win seats in a future election, but the absence of the three pro-government parties – if they don’t run or are barred from doing so – means there is no frontrunner going into a future election.

Mekenchil, which competed in parliamentary elections for the first time on October 4, would now seem likely to become one of the key parties in those future elections. The situation does raise the question of how far Japarov might be willing to go to ensure the good fortunes of the party he founded, and is undoubtedly counting on to help him in his already declared intention to run for president.

And while Japarov tries to avoid public accusations of administrative resources helping his Mekenchil party, he must also do something to improve his own image.

During the evening of October 6, less than 24 hours after Japarov was sprung from prison, a group of 30 members of parliament met in Bishkek’s Dostuk hotel to nominate and approve Japarov to be prime minister. The group was too small to constitute a quorum and another attempt was made on October 10 at the presidential residence outside Bishkek. But although the number of deputies was larger, it still was short of a quorum.

A headline in the New York Times on October 10 read “A Convicted Kidnapper Is Chosen to Lead Government of Kyrgyzstan.”

That is an image it will be difficult for Japarov to shed. Japarov was finally named prime minister on October 14 and claimed that the Supreme Court had annulled his conviction for kidnapping, though as recently as October 9, the court was denying it. On October 19, the Supreme Court did acquit Japarov, Tashiyev, and Mamytov of trying to overthrow the government in 2012.

While this might technically clear Japarov to run for office in the upcoming elections – if the constitutional barriers are rearranged or bypassed – it looks to some like Japarov is pressuring Kyrgyzstan’s notoriously malleable courts into ruling in his favor. And it’s not just the courts Japarov has been accused of pressuring.

Japarov’s supporters gathered in the center of Bishkek, despite an emergency situation having been declared, and called for the removal of President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, which happened on October 15 with his resignation, and later for the removal of Speaker of Parliament Kanat Isayev, which did not happen. But Isayev did step aside to allow Japarov to become acting president. Earlier, on October 9, Japarov’s supporters attacked a rival rally that was called by opposition parties and a group protesting the presence of organized crime in Kyrgyzstan’s politics.

Japarov’s supporters have often acted outside the law and on October 9 resorted to violence to break up a rival demonstration.

Japarov has taken some steps toward engaging with the Ata-Meken party, which has 11 seats in the current parliament, as well as the leaders of other parties.

On October 21, Tilek Toktogaziyev from the Ata-Meken party, was appointed agriculture minister. Toktogaziyev was number two on Ata-Meken’s candidate list and, at 29 years old (he will be 30 in December), also might appeal to the youth of Kyrgyzstan, who were active in the campaign and post-election protests, seeking the ouster of old guard politicians and their replacement with a new generation.

On October 14, the day he was named prime minister, Japarov met with Ata-Meken leader Omurbek Tekebayev. The next day, the Central Election Commission ruled to restore Tekebayev’s deputy mandate. It had been stripped from him in 2017 when an investigation on charges of fraud was launched against the Ata-Meken leader, charges he was later convicted of in what many believed was a politically-motivated case sponsored by former President Atambayev.

The leader of the Chong Kazat (Great Crusade) party, Maksat Mamytkanov, was named deputy prime minister. Another deputy prime minister is Aida Ismailova, who ran in the October elections as a candidate from the Birimdik party. The new minister of culture is the leader of the Yyman Nuru (Ray of Faith) party, Nurjigit Kadyrbekov.

The events that led to Japarov being named prime minister and then acting president have alarmed several of Kyrgyzstan’s main partners.

On October 13, Russia sent the deputy chief of the presidential administration, Dmitri Kozak, to meet with Jeenbekov while he was still president and with Japarov, the presumptive prime minister. But on October 15, the day Jeenbekov resigned, Russia announced it was suspending financial assistance to Kyrgyzstan. On October 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin at last commented directly on the goings-on in Kyrgyzstan, with derision: “I think current developments are a disaster for Kyrgyzstan and its people,” Putin said. “Every time they have an election, they practically have a coup. This isn’t even funny.”

The United States released a statement through its embassy in Bishkek on October 13, saying, “It is clear that one of the obstacles towards democratic progress is the attempt by organized crime groups to exert influence over politics and elections.” It urged that “citizens and their leaders must continue to fight against the influence of organized crime and corruption in politics.”

That same day, the European Union issued a statement expressing concern about “possible procedural flaws during the designation of the new Prime Minister.” After Jeenbekov resigned on October 15, the EU released another statement saying, “It is vital that the President’s powers and competences are exercised within the legal framework of the Kyrgyz constitution… [T]he reported transfer of presidential powers by the Speaker to the Prime Minister, Sadyr Japarov, raises serious questions in this regard.”

Several days later, Kyrgyzstan’s new foreign minister, Ruslan Kazakbayev, spoke with the EU special representative for Central Asia Peter Burian to ask for loan to help support Kyrgyzstan’s budget.

That is just an example of the problems Kyrgyzstan faces as long as the country is seen as being led by a convicted kidnapper. Japarov is trying to make changes to show he is a legitimate leader, but he does not have much time to accomplish a total reformation of his reputation.