Kyrgyzstan politics

“Let’s write about our country in a positive light and try to focus less on negative news,” Cabinet head Akylbek Japarov said.

Work on Kyrgyzstan’s North-South Alternative Highway, an ambitious project to speed up travel throughout the mountainous country and help connect its disparate regions, may finally be coming to an end.

The Japarov-Tashiev tandem has sunk real roots into Kyrgyzstan’s society, and those roots are deeper and stronger than they might seem on the surface.

The restrictive law was first proposed 10 years ago. How could it affect Kyrgyz society now that it’s been passed?

Kyrgyzstan’s next presidential election isn’t due until 2027, but Central Asia doesn’t always stick to schedule – making early chatter about a second term interesting. 

After a December 1 meeting in Tajikistan, security officials on both sides are proclaiming success and promising progress.

The Kyrgyz public’s doubts and questions about the Kolbaev killing are the expression of what they cannot see for lack of a transparent legal system amid the state’s apparent fight against criminality. 

Two years after re-instituting the Constitutional Court, Japarov has approved a law that opens its decisions to presidential interference.

Kolbaev’s death was a sudden end to a long, infamous, career of escaping the law both internationally and within Kyrgyzstan.

Kusturizatsia means, literally, “vomiting.” Under the practice, corrupt individuals can repay a fraction of stolen proceeds to the state and then go about their business. Who knows where the money goes?

Kyrgyzstan’s Social Democrats have limited influence on domestic politics. What to make of their sustained push for international partnerships?

Some worry that the push for matronymics, the use of a second name derived from a person’s mother rather than their father, has enabled a concentration of presidential power.

The Diplomat’s Managing Editor Catherine Putz had a recent conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Lesslie Viguerie about the state of relations.

The new attempt uses the phrase "foreign representative" but the implications are the same for Kyrgyzstan's largely foreign-funded NGOs.

For the second time in just over a year, Kyrgyzstan’s prosecutor general has sought to strip opposition politician Adakhan Madumarov’s immunity so he can be prosecuted. 

Sadyr Japarov represents a shift from old-school authoritarianism to new-wave methods of consolidating illiberal, autocratic power under the guise of popular support.

“The Kyrgyz political space has definitely become more constrained, more dangerous, more unpredictable, and less free.”

Rather than backing down, the Kyrgyz government has reportedly filed new charges against the large group of politicians and activists detained last October.

At least 20 activists and political figures opposed to the deal have been detained in Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov is providing much of the same old authoritarianism in new populist clothes.

It’s hard not to link the drug charges against Bolot Temirov and Bolot Nazarov to their activities irritating certain authority figures.

What’s next for Kyrgyz politics now that Sadyr Japarov has the government he wanted?

Tekebayev and other opposition politicians have been agitating against the November 28 election results.

With final results still pending, one thing is clear: Kyrgyzstanis are tired of elections.