The capital city is lively, if vaguely decaying. Its wide, organized streets are heavily trafficked, but covered with litter and grime, and buttressed by Soviet concrete block buildings. There are green parks alongside sporadic dirt piles — symbols of public works projects frozen due to a dearth of funding or follow-through.
Kyrgyzstan has come far — but some say not far enough. In 2010, it became the firstcountry in Central Asia to hold democratic Parliamentary elections. But on a recent trip, I found it to be a country sputtering towards stability in painful, self-inflicted fits and starts — with potentially negative implications for the future of democracy in the region.
Critical factions in Central Asia claim that Kyrgyzstan has somehow "failed" at its democratic experiment. That notion seems to be empowering the region's authoritarian leaders, and perpetuating fear and stagnation in Kyrgyzstan. Journalists I met, for example, complained that the country's relative openness is used against it in the region. They cited Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who reportedly "came out swinging against Kyrgyz democracy," as one of several neighbors who justify their own authoritarianism by making an example out of Kyrgyzstan, blaming its economic instability on market reforms and its social ills on Western-style social freedoms.
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Everyone I encountered in meetings with politicians, civil servants, activists, and journalists explained that while young people appreciate the country's relative freedom, older folks recall the baseline stability of Soviet times with fondness. Like ostalgie in the former East Germany, older generations wax on about when bread was cheap and everyone had work. No wonder that some Kyrgyz ponder wistfully if a "good life" like that under the USSR would "be better than a free one," as one young man opined.
But just how unstable is Kyrgyzstan? Has its democratic experiment "failed"? Nascent democracies may be tumultuous, but that hardly warrants sticking with sclerotic authoritarian regimes. Kyrgyzstan offers a powerful reminder that labeling immature democracies failures overlooks great feats of progress.
Indeed, some things are improving. Today, the country ranks "partly free,"putting Kyrgyzstan ahead of its "not free" neighbors (if not by much: the jailing of political opponents and anti-nationalist journalists remain significant problems). The journalists I spoke to said they feel freer today than they have in the past.
Government officials including legislators and representatives from the President's office and Interior Ministry took pains to define Kyrgyzstan's 2010 Parliamentary elections as the first free elections in the region. They also spoke energetically about overhauling Kyrgyzstan's aging infrastructure and agrarian economy as part of a grand leap into modernization that would rescue the third of people living below the poverty line.
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But improvement projects are often poorly executed. En route to Cholpon-Ata from Bishkek, paved highway gradually gave way to dirt roads littered with loose rocks. Construction workers had marked a "lane" as off-limits at one point by lining five or six large rocks across half of the width of the road — a solution that proves hazardous at night, when the low rocks are difficult to see until one is nearly upon them. This project's half-hearted safety measures rendered the road more dangerous than before repairs began.
The road reflects the stagnation of Kyrgyz policy and governance. Perhaps fear of failure scares policymakers away from broader economic and infrastructure changes, despite the economy's partial opening already. But without more changes, curbed inflation may once again spiral out of control, and corruption will remain endemic. One man complained that public servants' salaries are so low that even well intentioned ones "must" take bribes for their work; in his experience, only the upper crust of private businesspeople and lawyers escape that fate.
This hesitation and stagnation also seep into local business culture. Over and over again, I heard that Kyrgyzstan is seen as unstable by foreign investors. Locals interested in becoming entrepreneurs concoct ideas for factories, entertainment complexes, and more, but are often too worried about eventual government takeover to embark on the project. The Kyrgyz government has grappledfor years with the Canadian operator and majority-owner of the Kumtor gold mine, which it seeks to nationalize.
Kyrgyzstan's still- simmering ethnic tensions may also play into the broader torpor. The country has a nearly two-thirds ethnic Kyrgyz majority; Uzbek and Russian minorities each comprise about 14 percent of the population. The aforementioned politicians, as well as local journalists and businessmen who hosted dinners for my group, uniformly insisted that there are no societal barriers between ethnic Kyrgyz and the historically dominant Russian minority, and that intermingling and even intermarriage are common. Sure, I saw people waiting at bus stops together, and passing one another in supermarkets. But in five days of observing passersby as I criss-crossed the capital, I never saw ethnic Russians and Kyrgyz sharing a meal or walking together on their daily travels.
An American friend who's served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bishkek for two years stressed, "absolutely, this city is divided. Russian and Kyrgyz people are split into micro-communities across the capital." State officials may entrench ethnic hostilities by siding with the Kyrgyz majority; Human Rights Watch highlighted how authorities prosecuted mainly ethnic Uzbeks for crimes during the 2010 Osh riots, despite the fact that most victims were Uzbek.
What's next, then, for this young and troubled democracy? Officials are understandably trigger-shy of further changes that might destabilize the poor and sometimes volatile country, despite the positive example of allies like Turkey, whose strict early 21st century austerity measures brought stability that largely circumnavigated the recent global economic crisis.
Kyrgyzstan should see that partial liberalization short-circuits advancement and provides fodder for anti-democratic critics. Having struck out on this path — one that seeks to offer greater opportunities and equality to its people — after achieving independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan must doggedly embrace real democratization and market reforms. Think of it as the 'go big or go home' strategy of democracy. It's either that, or risk losing the progress it's already fought so hard for.
Kyrgyzstan hasn't failed. It simply has not had long enough to succeed.
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