Rate of Exchange: The Costs of Democratic Transition in Kyrgyzstan, and Who Picks up the Bill

(image credit RIA Novosti)

the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan announced on July 14 that it estimates a cost of 449 Million Kyrgyz Som (KGS) to conduct the upcoming Presidential Elections. The election marks the first change of the top executive since Roza Otunbayeva was selected as Interim/Transitional President in a package vote along with adopting the new Constitution that expressly limits the powers of the President in July 2010.

Otunbayeva has stayed true to her inaugural promise not to seek re-election, and in her absence a who's-who of Kyrgyz politicians have hinted at their intention to run. Currently, there are 14 declared candidates (5 declared last week), the most notable of which is Kamchybek Tashiev of the nationalist Ata-Jurt party. The big name not on the ticket at present is that of Social Democrat (SDPK) Almazbek Atambaev. Both are both current leading figures within the Jogoru Kenesh Parliament - Atambaev as Prime Minister and Tashiev as leader of the largest party in the unicameral legislature.

The new Constitution was written with the express purpose of limiting the authority of the President, and turning Kyrgzystan into a Parliament-dominated Democracy - the first in Central Asia - after two popular uprisings removed strong-arm Presidents in 2005 and 2010. That the most powerful politicians in Parliament are abandoning it to seek the Presidency suggests a possible return to a more empowered Executive.

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Indefinite Deployment: US Neocons Explain Rationale of Never Leaving Kyrgyz Airbase

originally posted on CA-NEWS.org
by Ryan Weber

The US will continue to have a military presence in Kyrgyzstan, perhaps indefinitely, despite plans for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, according to a veteran conservative analyst and former Defense Department staff.

The admission was made on July 6 at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative Washington, D.C. think tank with a history of promoting US national security interests.

The comments, by Seth Cropsey (pictured), a Senior Fellow at Hudson, and formerly of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, came in response to an audience question about the future of US-Kyrgyz relations after the end of military operations in Afghanistan, and the presumed closure of the US airbase at Bishkek's Manas International airport. The base, which opened in December 2001 and is now known as the Transit Center at Manas (or Manas TC), has been a lightning rod of controversy since 2005, and more recently figured as an international negotiating chip for then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev to elicit a a six-fold increase in the American's lease, up to $60 million per year in 2009.

US Military and diplomatic envoys have long argued that Manas TC is critical to the Afghan war effort, largely over-shadowing other topics of US-Kyrgyz foreign relations such as economic development, anti-corruption, and Human Rights violations under the current and past administrations.

But according to Cropsey, who is a former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Combat, future geopolitical concerns will necessitate a US presence long after the last US troops leave Afghanistan. He specifically cited a nuclear Iran, prolonged Afghan in-fighting, or an aggressive China all as viable justifications for a permanent US presence.

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