EVOLUTION IN THE PARTY STRUCTURE IN KYRGYZSTAN

Abstract

The first constitution of the independent Kyrgyz Republic adopted in 1993 made political parties an important political institution. However, they have not yet developed into an efficient political instrument, into a “first fiddle” of sorts of the social and political processes and have not yet claimed their potentially important role in the structures of power. So far, they remain outside the system and have not yet learned to properly perform their functions. While frequently leaving the constitutional and legal frameworks of their activity, they concede to traditional institutions (clans, tribalism, etc.), which unexpectedly revived as soon as the Communist Party’s monopoly in all political spheres was abolished, and the republic became independent.  In the late 1980s and early 1990s the political situation was shaped by the fact that the Communist Party had fallen apart and left the way open for the opposition. The elections to the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet and to the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz Republic brought to the fore a group of democratically minded deputies. This ushered in an age of political democracy very much reminiscent of the situation in the Russian Empire after the 1905 revolution.
 As before, the democratic forces proved weak, not only because former party and Soviet functionaries had captured the majority of the seats: the post-communist society had not yet been stratified into large social groups with shared social interests. The deputies expressed the more or less random instructions of their supporters living in certain territories. In other words, the new parties had practically no ties with the people; they were, rather, groups of like-minded people ranging from tens to hundreds of members. Finally, instead of cementing society and reaching a consensus about the reforms and the nature of the future social system, perestroika intensified the disagreements. Under these conditions political democracy is a purely formal procedure unable to rule. This has been amply demonstrated in all post-Soviet countries.