BTI 2012 | Kyrgyzstan Country Report

Status Index 1-10 5.32 # 76 of 128

Political Transformation 1-10 5.43 # 68 of 128 

Economic Transformation 1-10 5.21 # 73 of 128 

Management Index 1-10 4.85 # 70 of 128

scale: 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) score rank trend

This report is part of the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) 2012. The BTI is a global assessment of transition processes in which the state of democracy and market economy as well as the quality of political management in 128 transformation and developing countries are evaluated.

More on the BTI at http://www.bti-project.org

Please cite as follows: Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI 2012 — Kyrgyzstan Country Report. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2012.

© 2012 Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh BTI 2012 | Kyrgyzstan 2

Key Indicators

Population mn. 5.4 HDI 0.615 GDP p.c. $ 2273

Pop. growth1 % p.a. 0.8 HDI rank of 187 126 Gini Index 33.5

Life expectancy years 69 UN Education Index 0.716 Poverty3 % 29.4

Urban population % 36.6 Gender inequality2 0.370 Aid per capita $ 59.1

Sources: The World Bank, World Development Indicators 2011 | UNDP, Human Development Report 2011. Footnotes: (1) Average annual growth rate. (2) Gender Inequality Index (GII). (3) Percentage of population living on less than $2 a day.

Executive Summary

The year 2010 was eventful for Kyrgyzstan, with the violent overthrow of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, vicious inter-ethnic strife, and the most free and fair elections in Central Asia to date. Bakiyev’s regime collapsed on April 7 when his elite security squad attacked a crowd of at least 10,000 frustrated citizens gathered in central Bishkek. Eighty-six people died in clashes with the regime’s armed forces, and roughly 1,000 more were injured. After Bakiyev sought refuge in southern Kyrgyzstan, opposition leaders announced the formation of a provisional government headed by the interim president, Roza Otunbayeva.

Regime change in Bishkek triggered a series of violent events fueled by ethnic, economic and political disparities in the country. These clashes also demonstrated the interim government’s weak control over local police, especially in southern Kyrgyzstan. The first of these clashes broke out on April 19 in the outskirts of Bishkek. A group of villagers, reportedly ethnic Kyrgyz, attacked a Meshketian Turk community in Mayevka village, killing five Turks. Several further clashes occurred in May 2010 in the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad.

On June 10, a scuffle among young patrons of a local bar in Osh turned into one of the bloodiest inter-ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan’s history. The violence lasted for four days, exposing the interim government’s inability to respond effectively to ethnic conflict. Roughly 450 people died and some 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks had to flee their homes.

Kyrgyzstan’s citizens went to the polls twice in 2010, once for a constitutional referendum on 27 June 2010 and then to elect a new parliament on 10 October 2010. The referendum approved a new constitution that provided for a parliamentary system of government, and it also promoted Roza Otunbayeva from interim to actual president of Kyrgyzstan. Turnout for the parliamentary

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elections was about 57%. Five parties, including two openly critical of the new constitutional system and the new leadership, won seats in the parliament. This election was the most free and transparent election in Central Asia to date.

In the aftermath of all these events, Kyrgyzstan’s economy suffered severely, and a new coalition government uniting three parties, led by Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev of the Social Democratic Party, entered 2011 with a long and overwhelming list of urgent problems to deal with. It remains to be seen how the novel party-based parliamentary rule will work out, and whether the coalition government will manage to avoid collapse in the face of mounting pressure and severe challenges.

History and Characteristics of Transformation

During the first decade of independence, former president Askar Akayev famously declared Kyrgyzstan to be an “island of democracy.” This appellation, however, was soon undermined as Akayev silenced independent media and suppressed his opponents in the run-up to his third presidential election in 2000. Dissatisfied with his regime, opposition movements mobilized to oust Akayev in March 2005. Akayev was replaced by then-opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, but Kyrgyzstan’s political turbulence continued well into 2010. Bakiyev failed to meet public expectations, quickly succumbing to corruption himself and suppressing rival political forces. At the same time, President Bakiyev clearly sought to increase his powers with a new constitution adopted through a referendum in 2007.

After being re-elected in 2009, Bakiyev continued to sideline his political opponents and silence local mass media. Opposition leaders feared arrests or attacks and saw their relatives threatened with administrative and criminal charges. Several opposition leaders fled Kyrgyzstan prior to the 2009 elections. Over the course of 2009 alone, six journalists were brutally attacked, and two of them died as a result. All major print and online news outlets experienced government pressure and rarely published critical reviews of Bakiyev’s policies. To protect his own family and allies, and with a clear intention of dynastic succession, Bakiyev attempted to create a special committee responsible for selecting an interim president in the event that he left office before his term ended; this initiative did not materialize before his ouster. Moreover, he appointed his would-be successor son Maksim to head an agency, specifically set up for him, which de facto controlled all significant economic assets of the country.

Internationally, Bakiyev played two powers off against each other over the issue of the Manas Air Base, where the United States leases space for its troops involved in anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan. During a February 2010 visit to Moscow, the Kremlin reportedly promised Bakiyev a $2 billion credit if he expelled the U.S. military from Manas, but he changed his mind in June after the U.S. government agreed to increase its lease payments from $17 million to $60

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million per year. His willingness to cater to the highest bidder suggested that Bakiyev’s top policy priority was promoting his personal interests, as he faced little domestic pressure to evict the U.S. airbase.

Because Bakiyev’s hold on power seemed so secure, his overthrow on 7 April 2010 came as a surprise to many. Angered over the arrest of several prominent opposition leaders, protesters gathered in the town of Talas on April 6. What began as a small demonstration demanding Bakiyev’s resignation grew to spontaneous protests across the country. The next day, 86 people died during clashes with police, and roughly 1,000 more were injured in anti-government protests in central Bishkek. When the anti-regime violence reached its peak, Bakiyev fled Bishkek. Opposition leaders, freed from prison, announced the formation of a provisional government headed by Roza Otunbayeva and including leaders of the Social Democratic, Ata- Meken, and Ak-Shumkar parties, as well as some unaffiliated leaders.

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The BTI combines text analysis and numerical assessments. The score for each question is provided below its respective title. The scale ranges from 10 (best) to 1 (worst).

Transformation Status

I. Political Transformation

Question 1 | Stateness Score

After the regime change of April 2010, the state monopoly on the use of force Monopoly on the seriously deteriorated. Factors such as for