Kyrgyz Parliament Sets Majority Coalition

The Kyrgyz Parliament in their first (and so far, only) session on November 10. With the formation of a majority coalition on November 30, parliament is expected to begin regular meetings soon. (photo credit AFP)

by Ryan Weber

As reported earlier (Nov. 24 and Nov. 29), the Kyrgyz Parliament has been deadlocked since its opening session on November 10 because no single party, or even group of two parties, controls enough seats to form a majority of the 120-member Jogorku Kenesh Parliament and name a Prime Minister, as required by the Constitution.

On November 30, just 2 days before the deadline set by President Roza Otunbayeva, that deadlock has finally been broken. After weeks of intense negotiations, including meetings with the rival Ata-Jurt and Ar-Namys parties, the SDPK party revealed an agreement with longtime fellow "pro-government" socialist party Ata-Meken and the new business-oriented party, Respublika.

This was the exact coalition that analysts expected to emerge following the October 10 elections, but breakdowns in the negotiations, accusations of international bias, and stubborn party leaders caused the "obvious" coalition to stall time and time again. Just November 29, Farid Niyazov, spokesman for the SDPK party, said that the two most likely coalition outcomes would include the Ata-Jurt party, which controls 28 seats in parliament, the most of any party.

But on November 30, an agreement was signed - without Ata-Jurt.

Contracting a Coalition: The Agreement

The resulting faction - officially called "Consent for the Sake of Stability" - controls 67 seats in parliament. According to the agreement (full text here) signed by SDPK, Respublika and Ata-Meken, the three parties will work together to accomplish an array of generic, and a few very specific, goals. These include "True Friendship and cooperation in all spheres of life with the states of Central Asia and a strategic partnership with Russia," "Preserving the unity of the people of Kyrgyzstan," "Provide a stable and reliable energy system in winter 2010-2011" and "Achievement of macroeconomic stability."

Other points include providing humanitarian relief to victims of the June violence in Osh, ensuring continued political freedoms, fight corruption, put limits on mortgage rates, and increase agricultural subsidies.

The main purpose of the agreement, in addition to meeting the criteria of the coalition, was to name the leaders of the 3 parties to prominent positions in the new government (see below). Regarding the other Ministerial and deputy positions, these will be supplied later, in "distribution between the factions."

The agreement includes 3 other items of note:

1. A call for cooperation and working with other (non-coalition) parties within the parliament.
2. All parties are allowed to withdraw from the coalition after 1 year, but if they do so, all officers assigned by the agreement (the party leaders) will also be stripped of their positions. The agreement makes specific (double) reference to the Speaker of Parliament (the post occupied by Tekebaev, the longest negotiation hold-out).
3. The coalition is open to new/ additional members.

Familiar Names at the Top

The resulting government finds many top politicians in familiar surroundings. Almazbek Atambaev, leader of the SDPK party, will become Prime Minister, a position he previously held from March 29 to November 28, 2007. Prior to that, he had been Minister of Industry and Trade from December 2005 to April 2006. Atambaev has also been a regular Member of Parliament, and the lead opposition candidate in the 2009 Presidential elections. He has been the chairman of the SDPK party since 1999.

Omurbek Tekebaev, of Ata-Meken, is widely-credited as the force behind the new Kyrgyz Constitution, ratified by popular referendum in July 2010. The new framework dramatically shifts executive power from the President to the leaders of Parliament. Tekebaev will be assuming the position of Speaker of Parliament, a position he formerly held for 1 year following the 2005 "Tulip Revolution." Though more behind-the-scenes since 2007, Tekebaev was one of the strongest opponents of former President Aksar Akaev, and remained a powerful political name even when not in government.

Even Respublika, formed in 2010 and having no specific 'opposition' or 'pro-government' credentials, put forward an established name. It's founder and leader, Omurbek Babanov, is a Kyrgyz business leader and long-time SDPK member. The agreement names him as the "First Vice-Prime Minister" (Deputy PM), a position he was previously appointed to by President Bakiev in January 2009 after quitting politics to return to business. He has since become, by some reports, among the wealthiest men in Kyrgyzstan.

But the presence of so many familiar names at the pinacle of Kyrgyz politics shouldn't be so surprising. In fact, many of the new MPs have a long history, which is certainly true of the leaders in the minority/ opposition parties, Ata-Jurt and Ar-Namys. Their leaders, Kamchybek Tashiev and Felix Kulov, have also both formerly served in high office (Kulov was Prime Minister from 2005-2007; Tashiev was Minister of Emergency Situations for 2 years), and Ata-Jurt is especially well-endowed with past MPs and government ministers.

Same Names Doesn't Mean Same Game

But does the rotating cast of previously minor politicians (as even the Prime Minister must be regarded under the Akaev or Bakiev regimes) suggest, as EurasiaNet's Central Asia Editor David Trilling has called it, a "Déjà Vu Government"?

No, it certainly does not. For starters, Atambaev and Tekebaev have been operating in the opposition for most of their political careers. Even when elevated to high positions by the past regimes, it was often done as a means to co-opt the opposition without actually empowering them, and when this became clear, they resigned.

Next, we must move past all the hyperbole about Kyrgyzstan becoming the "First Parliamentary Democracy" in Central Asia and consider how this will substantially alter the formation of policy and conduct of governance in the small, resource-poor, isolated country with a struggling economy. Anyone trying to captain such a leaky boat in the midst of the on-going financial hurricane faces a tremendous challenge. Now, for the first time, the leaders of Kyrgyzstan must take into consideration that their hold on power is not absolute - if Atambaev and his coalition fail to deliver, they can be voted out of office in 2015. And between now and then, they will face the largest, most entrenched, and most powerful opposition bloc in the country's history.

How exactly Atambaev, Tekebaev, Babanov and President Roza Otunbayeva will navigate these challenges is unknown. Likewise, how Kulov, Tashiev and others will respond to their new role as government outsiders is unclear - will they buy into the new system and seek to make gains in support of their further involvement, or will they stonewall hoping to discredit the majority?

Certainly there is no chance that the earlier experiences of either group - as token minority political parties or domineering authoritarian bureaucrats - will provide applicable solutions to their new positions. For this reason, it seems very unlikely that the government of the Kyrgyz Republic will look, act, or think in any manner like what it has until now.

Of course, the world didn't change overnight. As the experience with anti-government terrorist cells and the quick-labeling of them as "Islamist" as well as continued assaults on the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization prove, much of the conditions and institutional tendencies of the old regime remain. Power in the winter and reservoir levels in the summer will remain major concerns, with striking implications for how the Kyrgyz Democrats will need to relate to their semi-authoritarian neighbors. And the dominant international influence will absolutely continue to be Russia, even as Putin and Medveydev have criticized the new Parliamentary-style government as being "inappropriate" for Central Asia.

Like-minded critics have been quick to predict the doom of the nascent majority. Shairbek Mamatoktorov, a member of the Constitutional committee, expressed his low expectations for a coalition formed from minority parties. He will not be alone in this sentiment.

But what the formation of this majority coalition signals, more than anything, is a promising start to the New Kyrgyzstan. With no guarantees of its success, and considerable - maybe even insurmountable - obstacles ahead, there is every reason to believe that a change has taken place in this small mountainous country. With every day and every year, the government grow less similar to its predecessors. Atambaev and his coalition may not last to see all the changes they hoped for, or perhaps they will be forced to compromise some goals in pursuit of others.

This is the contested nature of functional democracies, and just one more example of how the new Kyrgyz government looks nothing like the old.