PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN CENTRAL ASIA: PROGRESS, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS
Abstract
Anyone wishing to study political modernization should not ignore the recent problems born by the party-building process. The institution of parliamentary opposition and its evolution are probably the most complicated of them for the simple reason that legislatures are a relatively new and fairly progressive phenomenon in the region able to stimulate democratic processes on their own. In addition, the parliamentary parties have enough political weight to promote the best possible laws.
According to the generally accepted definition, the parliamentary opposition is a group of parliamentarians or the parliamentary faction of a party does not present in the Cabinet and opposing it on issues of fundamental importance.1 Social and political thought in Central Asia is paying enough attention to the opposition as the region’s political reality.2 So far, however, the parliamentary opposition as the most complicated part of political opposition has escaped attention.
This article attempts to assess the experience of other countries and analyzes domestic phenomena and the meaning of the changes to reveal their hidden mechanisms and impact on the local po litical regimes and take a look at the future of parliamentary opposition. I proceed from the fact that this institution has been developing in countries “that have never known a multi-party system, professional parliaments, legal opposition, independent press, real freedom of conscience, or independent trade unions, and where non-governmental organizations have been terra incognita.”3
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N.A. Nazarbaev, “Nam suzhdeno byt’ vechnymi druziami,” Interview to Rossiiskaia gazeta, May 2006, available at [www.akorda.kz]. Kazakhstan is a unique country where the institution of the parliamentary opposition is concerned. In the Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation there was a parliamentary opposition headed by the Progress deputy group that laid on the table a packet of reforms entitled New Economic Policy. In the fall of 1994 the parliamentary and non-parlia-mentary opposition joined forces on a platform of reforms alternative to the government’s course.
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Nurbolat Massanov, prominent Kazakh political scientist, has pointed to this phenomenon (for more detail, see:
Novaia Konstitutsia i perspektivy ob’edinenia demokraticheskikh sil Kazakhstana,” N. Massanov’s Polyton discussion club,available at [www.club.kz]).
The words “The opposition is a mirror reflection of the Government; the Government is a mirror reflection of the opposition” belong to Speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament A. Madumarov, available at [www.svoboda.org], 23 February, 2003.
Back in 1992 a group under A. Ochilov that wanted to cooperate with the then President K. Makhkamov left the Democratic Party of Tajikistan; this group was seeking power through the normal parliamentary process.
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By saying this I do not deny that at least certain groups of the old nomenklatura can change. In the early 1990s in Mongolia, for example, the ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party initiated a parliamentary reform and competi-tive elections thus giving rise to a parliamentary opposition.
N. Massanov, “Politicheskaia i ekonomicheskaia elita Kazakhstana,” Tsentral’naia Azia i Kavkaz, No. 1, 1998.
I.A. Karimov, op. cit. Later, on 29 August, 1996, speaking at the 6th session of the Oliy Majlis of the first con-vocation, the president of Uzbekistan said: “We understand political opposition as an alternative. An alternative is needed in all spheres of life” (I.A. Karimov, “Gotov sporit’s liubym opponentom,” Trud, 26 May, 1993).
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This is the opinion of Ed. Schatz, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto (Canada). For more detail, see:
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The definition of factions, blocs of factions set up in the country’s parliament either as the parliamentary majori-ty or as the opposition, was introduced into national legislation to specify Art 34 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which said that nobody had the right to infringe on the rights and freedoms of members of the opposition mi-norities in political parties or legislatures.
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The unique nature of Central Asian parliamentarism is best illustrated by the fact that K. Bakiev, one of the lead-ers of the anti-Akaev opposition, became president with the help of the parliament, the results of the elections to which the opposition rejected. Earlier, K. Bakiev accepted the decision of the Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan that annulled the election results.
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The unity of action and American patriotism that push back all contradictions can be detected time and again in the way the House minority votes in the U.S. Congress.
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