POLITICS

Nur OMAROV

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Nur Omarov, Ph.D. (Political Science), doctoral student at the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)

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Today the developments in Kyrgyzstan are giving rise to frightening premonitions, while comments about the present state of affairs are highly varied. Society is becoming more and more convinced that the fruits of the so-called popular revolution were reaped by a very narrow circle of the new ruling bureaucracy. The huge credit of confidence Akaev’s opponents received from the nation on the eve of the March events is rapidly evaporating: the former allies are too busy trying to divvy up power to engage in any coordinated action. In fact, this could have been predicted as early as late 2004 and early 2005. The opposition was too diverse, too ambitious, and too scandal-prone to permit optimistic forecasts about the country’s future. It closed ranks only to bring down Akaev’s regime. Today, various groups inside the political establishment are fighting among themselves for their own different interests, while the people have become hostages of these manipulations. The unsatisfactory results of the “year of change” are the best proof of the above.

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By early 2005, there were three opposition blocs in the country which united the most prominent of Akaev’s opponents. Early in the spring of 2004, the first efforts to unite the opposition failed due to the personal ambitions of those who wanted to remain in the limelight, rather than because of different reform strategies. The absence of a clear reform strategy gave rise to the highly unsatisfactory situation in the post-Akaev period. Much earlier, in the……………….

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