Contemporary Politics in Central Asia

Kyrgyzstan entered a difficult period during which two revolutions took place in 2005 and 2010.

Uzbekistan’s modest attempts in the early 1990s to introduce some minimalist form of democracy were aborted very quickly. Since then, the country had not made any progress in making democratic reforms until the death of its first President Islam Karimov, in 2016. In the country, the state’s oppression, the dominance of clan identity, and the lack of citizens’ awareness had been the main obstacles to the process of democratization. Although it was believed that Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s succession to the presidency in 2016 created a fertile ground for further democratization of the country, it is too early to speak of any substantial progress.

Despite its initial declarations of democracy, Turkmenistan took a different development path, leading to a state where its one-man rule is de facto. Thus, Turkmenistan has become the most authoritarian and closed political regime in the region. There is no indication that this will change soon.

The controversial parliamentary elections held in February and March 2005 changed Kyrgyzstan’s course of events and caused the Tulip Revolution. Ultimately, President Askar Akayev left the country. The parliament appointed the opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev as both interim prime minister and interim president. Before he was elected as the new president, he promised to curtail presidential powers and eradicate corruption and nepotism. However, despite the change in power in the country after the Tulip Revolution, the developments that took place were almost like the repetition of what happened between 1991 and 2005. With the people’s rebellion in April 2010, the second Tulip Revolution took place, and the interim government was established.

Currently, Kazakhstan is governed by a powerful presidential system. The president and the government exercise executive power, legislative power by the government and the parliament, and judicial power exercised by the Supreme Court, whose chairperson and the Senate elects judges at the president’s proposal. The president has the authority to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and members of the government. He/she is elected by the people for five years and serves for at most two five-year terms. However, this restriction had not been applied to the country’s first president.

In Kyrgyzstan, the first constitution adopted in 1993 had led to the formation of a presidential system that granted important powers to the parliament. After the second Tulip revolution, the provisional government in the country held a referendum on a new constitution, which transferred most of the presidential powers to an expanded parliament and established limits to prevent a single party from dominating the political system. Thus, the 2010 constitution laid the basis of a parliamentary system. The current political system in the country is shaped within this framework. When evaluated in terms of conventional classification, the new government form would be mixed presidential-parliamentary or semi-presidential. However, most experts define it as a parliamentary system as the president’s powers shifted to parliament. In this sense, Kyrgyzstan is the only country that has a parliamentary system as a form of governance.

The other three republics, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, embrace presidential systems varying degrees similar to that of Kazakhstan.

Currently, in Kazakhstan, parliament consists of two chambers; a lower house, the Majlis, is composed of 107 deputies, 98 of whom are elected based on territorial constituencies with a single region %7 threshold and nine by the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, which is composed of the representatives of ethnic groups living in the country; an upper house, the Senate, consists of 49 members; 2 senators from each region, the major cities of Almaty and Shymkent and the capital city of Nursultan are elected through joint sessions of the members of all representative bodies and other 15 senators are appointed by the president, accounting for the need to provide in the Senate for the representation of national, cultural and other significant interests of the society. Kazakhstan’s parliament competences are exercised in joint sessions of two chambers and in separate sessions of the Chambers through consecutive consideration of issues, first in the Majlis and then in the Senate. Moreover, each chamber has exclusive and independent competences.

In Kyrgyzstan, the parliament, the Jogorku Kenesh.

In Turkmenistan, initially, a bicameral parliament consisting of Halk Maslahaty-People’s Council and the Mejlis was established. Halk Maslahaty was the highest representative body, composed of the president, parliamentary deputies, peoples’ representatives, members of the Cabinet of Ministers, Supreme Court judges, and local officials, and had broad powers such as advising on constitutional issues, ratifying treaties, and making recommendations on economic, political and social issues. It was abolished in 2008 with the adoption of a new constitution.

In Turkmenistan, the Communist Party changed its name to the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (DPT), and the Peasant’s Justice Party, a government-sponsored party, was established. Others were banned.

In Kyrgyzstan, six parties won seats at the parliamentary elections, which took place in 2015.

The Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT), which has no seats in the parliament, is the only party that carries out any blatantly oppositional activities.

Nazarbayev and Karimov saw themselves as the natural leader of Central Asia.

The power transition in the Central Asian republics followed three different paths. First, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan experienced opaque power transition processes during which two countries witnessed their presidents’ sudden death and their substitution by regime insiders (Olmos, 2020). Second, Kazakhstan experienced a different but similar handover. The president resigned and was substituted by the former government’s member. A similar process might proceed in Tajikistan as it seems Rahmon might be looking for his son to succeed him. Although the changes in leadership in these countries took place due to the elections, the fact that those older regimes perpetuate through insiders who have not made any substantial political reforms demonstrate that there has not taken place elite transformation in real sense. In this sense, the third way of power transition occurred after the political unrest in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 represents a different case. The leadership succession by opposition leaders and subsequent political reforms reveals that the country witnessed an elite transformation utterly different from other Central Asian republics.

Concerning the alphabet, while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan acted very quickly and replaced their alphabet with the Latin alphabet in 1993.

Five roses on Turkmenistan’s flag represent the five great Turkmen tribes united under the roof of Turkmenistan.

National legends such as Timur in Uzbekistan, Kazakh Khanate in Kazakhstan, and the Epic of Manas in Kyrgyzstan are glorified in every single place.

The very recent inter-ethnic violence between the Kazakhs and the Dungans in Kazakhstan has also cost peoples’ lives and caused a large number of Dungans to flee to Kyrgyzstan.

In 2010, the ethnic conflict broke out between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 2010 in south Kyrgyzstan, a country known as the most liberal and most vigorous democracy in Central Asia.