荣介：吉尔吉斯斯坦为何“又变天”？
9 October 2020
Recently, Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian country, fraud accusations in the national parliamentary elections triggered political turbulence.
Kyrgyzstan is a young country in Central Asia after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, with a population of about 6.4 million (less than one third of Beijing’s population), a land area of nearly 200,000 square kilometers (roughly equivalent to Hebei Province), and relatively backward economic development.It is well-known for the two “revolutions”-“Tulip Revolution” (2005) and “Second Revolution” (2010).
In October 2017, the presidential election was held smoothly, and the current President Zheenbekov began his six-year term. This is the first peaceful transfer of presidential power since Kyrgyzstan’s independence. At that time, observers commented that the curse of “chaos at every election” was finally broken.
However, the present scene seems to indicate that “election” is still the stage where all political forces in Kyrgyzstan compete and conflicts erupt.
Election upheaval
In late September 2016, the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan approved the constitutional amendment bill, which planned to greatly strengthen the powers of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister and weaken the power of the President. In December, the bill was passed by referendum. Since then, parliament has gained the status of “real power” in Kyrgyzstan’s political life. Therefore, the parliamentary election held on October 4th is “of great significance” to the political forces of all parties.
On October 4th, a total of 16 parties took part in the election, and each party needed to get more than 7% of the votes to enter the parliament. According to the preliminary vote counting results, the United Party, Kyrgyzstan My Motherland Party, Kyrgyzstan Party and United Kyrgyzstan Party won more than 7% of the votes and entered the parliament.
After the preliminary vote counting results were announced, the opposition who failed to enter the parliament held a protest in the center of Bishkek on the 5th, and the number of supporters quickly increased from hundreds to thousands.
In the early morning of the 6th, opposition supporters occupied the White House, a government building integrating the presidential palace and parliamentary offices. Later, protesters occupied the office building of the National Security Council of Kyrgyzstan and released former President Atambayev and other former government officials in custody, including Sadr Zhaparov, who later assumed the post of acting prime minister.
Since the opposition occupied the government building, Kyrgyz President Zheenbekov has never appeared, and the meeting with the opposition leaders scheduled for the morning of the 6th has not been realized.
Why is there chaos?
Undoubtedly, the most direct cause of opposition protests is that the opposition is dissatisfied with the election results.
According to the initial statistics released after the election, almost all the four short-listed parties are pro-government parties, with a strong “southern” color. Opposition parties representing the “North” have been shut out.
The Coordination Committee formed by opposition political parties issued a statement saying that this election is the worst parliamentary election in the whole history of independence. President Zheenbekov’s abuse of administrative resources, bribery and personal attacks on party representatives, especially the false counting of voting results, led to peaceful protests.
The essential problem hidden behind such condemnation is actually the imbalance of “North-South relations”.
In Kyrgyzstan, there are two major political factions. Past historical experience shows that Kyrgyzstan’s stable period is a period in which the distribution of power maintains the balance between the north and the south. Specifically, in the same period, the president as head of state and the prime minister as head of government must come from different regions in the north and south. If the president is a northerner, the prime minister must be a southerner; If the president is from the south, the prime minister must be from the north. Once this balance is broken, there will be unrest.
This election has violated this taboo. President Zheenbekov is a southerner, and the parliament will be “southerned” through this election, so the prime minister introduced by the parliament in the future will also be a southerner. This obviously infringes on the interests of the northern political groups.
Indeed, the Kyrgyz people who participated in or supported the protests generally believed that the “human intervention factors” in the election results were too obvious. The unanimous questioning of the election results also made the opposition political parties who still had bad blood temporarily put aside their old grievances and walked together, so there was an opposition protest in the center of the capital, Bishkek, on the 5th.
However, since the protests began on the 5th, and the White House, the office of the president and parliament, was “won” in the early morning of the 6th, the number of supporters soared from hundreds to thousands, even nearly 10,000, and people had to wonder whether there were deeper reasons for so many supporters to gather in such a short time and show such powerful action.
Perhaps a data from September can explain some of the problems. Alybayev, Deputy Minister of Economy of Kyrgyzstan, said at a press conference in September that according to the forecast, the GDP of Kyrgyzstan will drop by 5.6% in 2020. This means that since Kyrgyzstan experienced negative growth due to the change of domestic regime in 2010, it is a foregone conclusion that negative growth will occur again.
In addition, the total remittances of Kyrgyzstan from January to July this year decreased by 9.3% compared with the same period of last year. According to World Bank statistics, remittances can account for 31.5% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP. Therefore, the drastic reduction of remittances will have a certain negative impact on Kyrgyzstan’s economy.
97% of remittances from Kyrgyzstan come from Russia, and the decrease of remittances is mainly due to the emergence of pneumonia in COVID-19. On the one hand, epidemic prevention and isolation measures limit the flow of personnel; On the other hand, Russia’s economy has been hit by the epidemic, unable to provide jobs and salaries as before.
It should be pointed out here that the reduction of remittances means that a large number of unemployed young people appear. Even before the epidemic was completely controlled, scholars in Kyrgyzstan reminded the government that it was necessary to consider the employment needs of young people, or to provide more jobs, or to consider resuming transportation with traditional migrant employment countries such as Russia.
Many unemployed people, with the resentment brewed by the economic recession and the isolation and restriction measures of pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19, can imagine their impact under the stimulus of a certain reason. According to Kyrgyzstan’s national news agency, enterprises, banks and commercial organizations have been robbed in many places in the country, resulting in heavy property losses. Both foreign enterprises in Kyrgyzstan and local enterprises have been affected.
How will it end?
At present, the political changes caused by the parliamentary elections in the country continue. From the protest on the 5th to the 7th October, in just two or three days, the situation changed in waves, from protesting on the streets to impacting the “White House”, from the release of former politicians to the substitution of the Prime Minister’s Speaker, from asking the parliament to be held again. It is dazzling to “recommend” the president to resign …
Since the protest, Kyrgyz President Zheenbekov has shown great restraint. Compared with the situation in Belarus not long ago, it can even be said to be “not tough enough”.
Zheenbekov delivered a speech to the whole country on the 6th, pointing out that some political forces tried to illegally seize state power and called on all parties to safeguard national peace and stability. In response to some doubts about the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections, Zheenbekov suggested that the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan carefully investigate the irregularities in the elections and cancel the election results according to law when necessary.
Subsequently, the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan announced on the 6th that the election results of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament were invalid, and a date for re-election would be set within two weeks.
However, with the development of the situation, announcing the re-election of parliament is not conducive to stabilizing the situation.
Kyrgyzstan’s Speaker and Prime Minister resigned successively on the 6th, and the opposition became acting Prime Minister. Mecota Buick Abdyldayev, a member of the Common Party, was appointed as the new speaker, and Sadr Zhaparov, an opposition figure who just got out of jail, became acting prime minister according to the appointment of the temporary parliamentary meeting. According to the parliamentary information bureau, Zhaparov will complete the formation of the interim cabinet in the next few days and exercise its functions and powers until the new government is formally formed.
After the parliament and the government changed hands, Zheenbekov said in an interview with BBC Kyrgyzstan later on the 6th that as a legitimate president, he was ready to have a dialogue with all parties in China. He also pointed out that the purpose of the opposition is not only to question the election results, “it is very clear today, all this is to let me resign.”
Opposition leader Saliev said that he suggested that current President Zheenbekov resign voluntarily, otherwise, “there is still a way out, that is, waiting for the parliament to propose impeachment of the president”. Since then, the opposition’s demand has been upgraded from “re-election” to “resignation of the president”.
It seems to be the general trend for the opposition to come to power. However, things have changed again on the 7th-the fruits of victory are just around the corner, and it is time to talk about the division of interests, so the internal contradictions of the opposition began to be exposed.
On the 7 th, the opposition first began to have different opinions on the candidates for the new speaker and acting prime minister; Then, the opposition divided into different alliances and set up their own coordination committees. In the whole morning, the coordination committee has changed from one to three, and frequently voiced through the media, among which there are many criticisms and doubts about each other.
At the same time, young people who participated in the protest rally set up a youth group. There is also a “generation gap” between young people’s ideas and leaders of opposition political parties. “It’s easier to harness a tiger than to harness it.” Next, whether young people can dance with the tambourine of opposition leaders has become a new problem.
“Waiting for the opponent to make a mistake”, from this point of view, Zheenbekov seems to have a chance to turn over.
On the 7th, he made a pointed video speech: I once again urge people who took to the streets and their organizers and leaders to return to the legal track. In the current predicament, I want to pay special thanks to the young people, who have set an example for the older generation who are busy distributing benefits.
Obviously, Zheenbekov, who has never appeared before, is not ignorant of the situation. Perhaps, he has also discovered the possibility of “decoupling” between young people and opposition leaders.
Every day there are new surprises in Kyrgyzstan’s political situation, so we should continue to observe carefully. The international community has also paid close attention to this political turmoil. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Russia, the United States, the European Union, and China all voiced their opinions one after another, with no essential difference in their positions, namely, they hoped that all parties in Kyrgyzstan would resolve their differences peacefully within the constitutional framework, overcome the crisis through political channels and non-violent means, and called on all political forces in Kyrgyzstan to show their wisdom and responsibility to ensure domestic stability and security.
With the resignation of many local chief executives, there are already dangerous signs of social disorder in Kyrgyzstan. It is naturally a blessing for the people of Kyrgyzstan to settle their differences peacefully as soon as everyone expects.
Source: https://www.guancha.cn/rongjie/2020_10_08_567426_1.shtml
Kchew's Blog 