IT WOULD be either the “lemon” or the “tulip” revolution. Kazbek and his friends could not quite decide.
But as they watched Ukraine’s Orange Revolution unfold last year, they were convinced of one thing: Kyrgyzstan could be next. Their mountainous homeland was thousands of miles east of Ukraine, and one tenth of its size, but the political parallels between the former Soviet republics were striking.
Kyrgyzstan, like Ukraine, was hailed as a beacon of democracy after the Soviet Union’s collapse but had slipped into the standard post-Soviet habits of clan capitalism and authoritarian government.
After 15 years in power Askar Akayev, the President, now appears determined to pack the parliament with relatives and allies at elections on February 27 — and to install his chosen successor at a presidential poll in October. Kazbek, a young Kyrgyz democracy activist, had been an election observer in Ukraine and witnessed first-hand the tactics used to mobilise opposition protests there.
Returning to Kyrgyzstan, he co-founded a youth movement, Kelkel, (Renaissance) modelled on Otpor (Resistance), the Serbian group that helped to topple Slobodan Milosevic and spawned similar movements in Georgia and Ukraine.
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“We decided on the lemon revolution, because yellow is a colour of change — like on a traffic light,” Nazik, another Kelkel leader, told The Times. The tulip idea was to match the Rose Revolution in Georgia.
So far, the protests that began in January have attracted only a few hundred people, waving yellow banners and handing out flyers with catchy slogans. But the demonstrations illustrate how the ripples of the Orange Revolution have spread all the way from the new frontiers of the EU to the borders of China.
Regional experts say that they could yet inspire a broader upheaval if Mr Akayev tries to change the constitution to prolong his rule or to install an unpopular successor. The outcome will have broad strategic implications not just for Russia and the United States, which both have military bases in Kyrgyzstan, but for China as well.Last year, Stephen Young, the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, publicly urged the Government to set an example by presiding over the first peaceful democratic transition in Central Asia. “If there is in fact the peaceful democratic transition that we hope to see, it would be a very encouraging sign to the people of all of your neighbours,” he said.
Enraged Kyrgyz officials accused him of fomenting revolution. President Akayev gave warning that such a movement could be hijacked by Islamic extremists, sparking a civil war like that in Tajikistan in the early 1990s.
Osmonakun Ibraimov, State Secretary and a close ally of President Akayev, told The Times: “We don’t have any intention to falsify election results like in Georgia. That’s why I think there’s no reason to have such a revolution.”
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However, critics say that the Government has already influenced the election by preventing opposition figures from running and by promoting candidates from the ruling elite. Bermet, the President’s daughter, and Aidar, his son, are both running for the 75-seat parliament as well as two of his sisters-in-law, the son of his Prime Minister and the son-in-law of his chief of staff.
One opposition leader, Roza Otunbayeva, was prevented from running in the same constituency as Bermet because she had been living abroad for the past five years, first as Ambassador to Britain then as a UN representative in Georgia.
“We’re living in a Khanate,” Mrs Otunbayeva said. “Akayev wants to develop a family like the Gandhis or the Bhuttos where his children succeed him. Everything that moves, that shines, that has any price belongs to his family.”
Bermet, 32, accuses Mrs Otunbayeva of staging a publicity stunt, and says that the West is too harsh on her father.
“Our standards are much higher compared with other countries in the region and we are entitled to some recognition and objectivity,” she says. Yet students in her constituency, University District No 1, say that they are being instructed to vote for Bermet by their teachers. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former Prime Minister who plans to run in the presidential election, also says that officials in his constituency have told people to vote against him and have obstructed his campaigning. Opposition candidates are denied balanced media coverage as the State — or the President’s family — control every television channel and all but three newspapers.
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In addition, the Kyrgyzstan Government has openly courted support from Russia and China, playing on their fears of US encroachment in Central Asia.
It has asked Beijing to send election observers, while barring those from the National Democracy Institute. When the Kyrgyz Foreign Minister visited Moscow this month, Russia announced that it would double the size of its military base in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyzstan Government then said that it would not allow the United States to use Awacs surveillance aircraft at its base.
Moscow has been careful to appear impartial this time, holding talks with opposition leaders as well. But analysts say that it could be heading for another foreign policy failure.
“In Ukraine, the West was like a skilful lover, while Russia was like an impotent rapist,” Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, said. “I’m afraid Moscow is going to repeat the same mistakes in Kyrgyzstan.”