Fissures in Kyrgyz Opposition

A public meeting intended as a cohesive show of force against the government has only served to highlight schisms within the opposition.

The Third National Kurultai, or assembly, took place in Kerben, the main village in the Aksy district of southern Kyrgyzstan on August 23. The choice of venue was no accident. Aksy district has been a hotbed of discontent since police opened fire on demonstrators there in March 2002. Six local people were left dead, sparking months of protests.

Opposition groups were galvanised by the grassroots support they received – the first time they had received backing from a large, rurally-based constituency. They put aside political differences and organised a sustained anti-government campaign, including large protest marches and two opposition kurultais.

The authorities were taken aback by the strength of the Aksy movement – and the anger expressed through it, with demands for President Askar Akaev and his team to step down. They made some political concessions, such as personnel changes in the government and prosecutions of the police officials involved in the shootings. However, the former were criticised as cosmetic changes, while the effect of the latter was watered down when guilty sentences handed down against several policemen in December 2002 were overturned in May this year.

The government also tried to address some of the social roots of the discontent in Aksy, a particularly poor part of the country. It provided compensation to the families of the dead, and earmarked some 1.5 million US dollars to improve social and economic conditions.

At the same time it did its best to slow the impetus of the protest movement. The third kurultai was supposed to have been held in the capital Bishkek in November last year, but the risk posed by such an open expression of dissent close to the seat of power led the authorities to forcibly eject people arriving from southern Kyrgyzstan to attend the congress.

These moves drained the Aksy movement of its urgency and some of its support, leaving the most radical section of the opposition in charge. Observers of the political scene say the latest gathering was a reflection of how the more radical wing of the opposition have become isolated from its mainstream.

The leading light at the event was Azimbek Beknazarov, member of parliament for Aksy and leader of the Movement for the Resignation of Akaev and Reforms for the People, which includes a number of opposition parties. Others who attended were Erkindik party leader Topchubek Turgunaliev and human right activist Tursunbek Akunov.

But other prominent opposition leaders stayed away, including Communist Party leader Absamat Masaliev, Omurbek Tekebaev of the left-leaning Ata Meken party, parliamentarians Ishenbai Kadyrbekov and Adakhan Madamarov, and Emil Aliev of the Arnamys Party.

There was even disagreement about how many people had turned up – Beknazarov said said 1,200 while the local government chief said it was nearer 200.

The kurultai approved a 14-point resolution mainly directed against the president and his government. Critics said the seriousness of some of the points made was diffused by the content and sheer diversity of the others, for example one calling for the prime minister to be prosecuted for pulling down a statue of Lenin in Bishkek, and another attacking the OSCE mission in Kyrgyzstan.

Organisers were pleased with the results. “I have participated in all the kurultais, and this one was the most constructive,” Akunov said afterwards. “ People criticised not just the government but the opposition as well, for we are not united and we do not have a single joint candidate for presidential elections”.

“It was democracy in action,” said Tolekan Ismailova, leader of the Civil Society Against Corruption, describing Aksy as “a Mecca for democracy”.

Others were disappointed by the way the kurultai was run, and by what came out of it. “I am against the Beknazarov and Turgunaliev group privatising the Aksy events,” said Edil Baisalov, the head of the NGO Coalition for Civil Society and Democracy. “We’ve been waiting for the third kurultai all year, hoping that it would help us come to terms with what has happened. Unfortunately, the kurultai produced nothing new, and I don’t consider it to be a national meeting.”

Madumarov, a well-known member of parliament who boycotted the event, says the episode has left him disappointed with opposition parties. “The opposition is the same as authorities”, he told IWPR. “I remain a classic opposition person, but I am breaking with the current opposition. It’s just too constricting, and I don’t like their fighting methods, their views, or their intellectual resistance to the current government.”

Some commentators think the government cleverly engineered the dissent in the opposition ranks, both covertly and by bullying. “The Aksy events provided a strong stimulus for the opposition to unite,” Radio Liberty reporter Bektash Shamshiev told IWPR. “But when the government recovered from the shock, it started a full frontal attack on the opposition. Some were intimidated, while others became loyal, possibly in return for a deal. ”

Others involved in the political scene say the schism had to happen anyway because of underlying tensions.

“I think that the split in the Kyrgyz opposition happened because they have different ways and methods of achieving their goals,” said Muratbek Imanaliev, a former foreign minister who now leads Truth and Progress, a small centrist party. “Some of them are calling for extreme action, while others suggest more moderate routes. At any rate, there will be no unity among the opposition of the kind we have seen previously. Instead, we can expect an even deeper divide.

Omurbek Tekebaev thinks the parties are already manoevring ahead of the presidential election due in 2005, “On the threshold of parliamentary and presidential elections, many political parties and politicians are searching for new allies, choosing new tactics and becoming rivals.”

The authorities are clearly delighted with the outcome of the opposition meeting. Bolot Januzakov, part of the president’s team of advisers, said, “The sounder part of the opposition did not attend the kurultai. They did the right thing, having understood that they have nothing in common with the radical opposition.”

Leila Saralieva is an independent journalist in Bishkek.