Opposition Probes Government's Pressure Points

An opposition demonstration planned for the beginning of November is designed more to extract concessions than to force out the Kyrgyz president and prime minister, according to NBCentralAsia political observers.



On October 2, leaders of the opposition Movement for Reforms announced plans to start an open-ended demonstration on November 2 in the main square of the capital Bishkek. The main demand will be for the resignation of the President Kurmanbek Bakiev and Prime Minister Felix Kulov.



The last major opposition protests were held in the spring, at which time the opposition was demanding that Bakiev sack a number of senior level officials, embark on constitutional reform immediately, and wage war on crime and corruption.



After a summer lull, during which the authorities met some of these demands, the opposition convened a “kurultai” or assembly in October, which NBCentralAsia commentators say was poorly attended and produced no strident statements from opposition leaders.



Commentators subsequently began suggesting that the opposition had failed to capitalise fully on a scandal involving Movement for Reforms leader Omurbek Tekebaev, who was arrested in early September after Polish border guards found half a kilogram of heroin in his luggage. Tekebaev was rapidly freed after the Polish authorities ruled that the drugs had been planted by his political opponents. Following allegations that the president’s brother Janysh Bakiev was behind the incident, he was sacked from his position as deputy head of the National Security Service or SNB.



On September 22, the Kyrgyz parliament passed a resolution describing the Bakiev-Kulov alliance – known as the “tandem” - as anti-constitutional, and presenting a list of demands including swift constitutional reform, the resignation of the chief prosecutor, the removal of Bakiev’s relatives from positions at embassies abroad, and direct government control over the SNB.



Although this tough-talking resolution was passed mainly because it was supported by opposition members of parliament, NBCentralAsia’s political scientists believe that if the opposition is to make any further progress, it will need manpower. The scale of recent demonstrations, however, raises question-marks about whether it is capable of staging a really massive gathering.



The commentators note that public support for demonstrations is weakening, so that the kind of mass engagement needed to bring about regime change would only happen if the opposition could bring hard evidence to back up allegations that, for example, senior officials have “privatised” major national industrial assets.



Thus, camping out in front of the government building in Bishkek in an open-ended protest action is in reality a tactic designed to weaken the government and extract concessions from it, NBCentralAsia commentators say. These concessions might consist of the president agreeing to constitutional changes sought by the opposition, plus the resignation of a few officials and reforms of the media.



In a sign that such an offer of dialogue might be on the table, opposition leaders have written to the authorities, including the president, to invite them to meet civil society groups and the opposition on October 12.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)