Kyrgyzstan: A Decade of Development

Soon after Kyrgyzstan established its independence from the Soviet Union on August 31, 1991, many development experts were enthused to see its new President, Askar Akaev, push for bold democratic and market reforms. After all, its neighboring Central Asian governments had relatively similar preconditions and had created autocratic types of governments with the fall of the Soviet Union. These reforms encouraged most international development banks and leading states in the development assistance field to pore in funds to assist this budding democracy. They knew that as one of the poorer former Soviet Union republics, the effort to bring Broad Based Sustainable Development (BBSD) — which includes structurally transforming the economy, growing with equity, and maintaining democratic governance — to Kyrgyzstan would be challenging, but important for peace and stability in the region. The first few years looked promising as growth rates, industry production rates, and democratic governance blossomed. Yet, at the end of the decade, the picture looks much dimmer. Poverty is steadily increasing and political and civil rights are severely diminishing. This paper seeks to determine to what extent Kyrgyzstan has achieved BBSD and to present possible explanations as to what is preventing it.

PRECONDITIONS

When the Kyrgyz accepted St. Petersburg’s rule in 1876, the Russians found a heavily nomadic and clan-based society. These clans consisted of an extensive web of horizontal and vertical kin-based relations along with regional connections. The patron-client groups were both an extended Muslim family and a type of government, often providing security, access to markets, and social services. Unlike other Central Asian clans found in present day Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz governed their lives with a degree of debate and consultation among communities to solve shared conflicts even though a type of aristocracy dominated many communities. A degree of flexibility also existed in selecting leaders or khans so that when traditional leaders failed to provide an acceptable candidate, communities would find other men with ability to lead. Many development experts have looked to this relative liberalness in Kyrgyz traditional heritage to explain the rush to democratic reforms after the fall of the Soviet Union.

It wasn’t until after 1924, the year Kyrgyzstan became an independent republic of the Soviet Union, that Soviet leaders gradually attempted to modernize the Kyrgyz economy and population. Nomadic farmers were forced to become sedentary farmers near villages to improve agriculture productivity and to attempt to mitigate the strong clan connections. Thousands of collectivized farms were created, which often used a point system to encourage individuals that worked harder to earn more points and thus more pay. Although productivity increased under this system, the farms were often too large for the point keeper to distinguish who was working harder in a plot full of workers and many lazy farmers or farmers related to the point keepers received the same points as more hard-working farmers. Although the majority of agriculture production was within the collectivized farms, Kyrgyz farmers also held private plots of land. During the 1970s, private plots were responsible for 57 percent of potatoes, 50 percent of vegetables, and 28 percent of meat and a growing share of the product value.

Similar to other Central Asian republics, Kyrgystan’s borders were drawn more for industrial than political reasons. As a result, a sizeable number of Uzbeks were included in the Kyrgyz Republic as the Soviets attempted to capitalize on Central Asia’s natural and labor resources. Large amounts of reserves in coal, gold, mercury, uranium, zinc, and lead were used; coal accounting for around 45 percent of the coal production to Soviet states. Russian managers also came in to build new factories in metalworking, meatpacking, textiles, and sugar refining. Hydroelectric power plants were constructed for energy across Central Asian countries. Even a few sophisticated factories were created to build items such as cars, computers, and defense equipment all to be sold to the Soviet Union. By the late 1980s, however, more than a third of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP was from livestock with more than 40 percent of its population employed in the business.

Russians also brought with them large bureaucratic organizations and their managers to serve the Kyrgyz people and Russia. New settlements and homes were constructed along with schools and hospitals. Irrigation projects helped bring clean water to the towns and villages. These new institutions helped raise the literacy rates to nearly universal by the early 1980s and increasingly encouraged a sense of national identity although more so in the cities than in the rural areas. They also substantially increased the health of most of the Kyrgyz people. The Soviets, however, failed to build an adequate transportation system within the country and to neighboring counties outside of the Soviet Union. Typical of other parts of the USSR, political and civil rights were severely hampered within the population. The Soviets also failed to lessen the strength of the clans, and the population was lead by an elite clan, party, and academic base.

As Mikhil Gorbachev took power in 1985, Kyrgyzstan was urged to become more self-sufficient under perestroika. Absamat Masaliev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic at the time, however, saw this turn of events with great concern. His deputy prime minister expressed his concern this way: "how could more self-sufficiency be placed on Kyrgyz shoulders when nearly half of its workers were employed by enterprises subordinate to the center and capital investment per head was below the national average." With perestroika came growing economic and political problems including increasing levels of unemployment and a conflict between the Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz. After President Masaliev was unable to handle, even aggravated, the problems, the Kyrgyz Communist party suggested Askar Akaev to become leader because they thought he would be more controllable.

Like other important leaders in history, Akaev had his own ideas about Kyrgyzstan’s future. Formerly a physicist, it wasn’t until much later in his life that Akaev joined the communist party. Even then, he joined to pursue his more scholarly activities becoming the Chairman of the Academy of Sciences just before his nomination. It appears that it was Akaev’s focus on scholarly activities that might have encouraged other communist party leaders to think he could be controlled. When Akaev, however, was elected president of the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz Republic in 1990, he began praising democratic and market reforms ideas. Speaking in one of his first presidential speeches, President Akaev pointed to the benefits of democracy claiming it could bring the economic growth and financial support the country needed, but would not be a panacea. As the Kyrgyz shortly headed towards independence, his leadership catalyzed democracy reform attempts in Kyrgyzstan building on the relative liberalness of the traditional clans and the use private farms.

TRANSITION (PRE-1995)

When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991, President Akaev intensified his push for economic and democratic reforms. The reasoning he gave was that given Kyrgyzstan’s geographic size and location and resource base, Kyrgyzstan needed foreign investment and assistance to structurally transform its economy and raise the living standards of its population. Kyrgyzstan’s GNP per capita was $1,550 compared to $1,350 in Uzbekistan and $2,470 in Kazakhstan. Inflation was at 930 percent. The GDP real growth rate was –15.5 percent. Severe amounts of underemployment and unemployment (close to half of the population) existed. See Kyrgyzstan Economic Indicators at the back of this document. Many of the elites within the remaining 350-seat Supreme Soviet council, however, were concerned that the reforms would threaten their economic stability and political influence, which motivated Akaev to find ways to build support for his reforms among the elite.

The type of transition that President Akayev attempted to implement was similar to other countries that are plagued by acute economic and social problems. According to George Sørensen, these economies must open their markets to the world and remove all centrally planned aspects of government. In order to do this effectively states must create an independent banking system, an unemployment support system, and a legal back-up system. As part of his effort to bring about a structural transformation, President Akaev removed almost all of the price controls on goods except for a few essential goods such as domestic fuel, rent, social services, and children’s food to preserve the living standards. He pursued an aggressive privatization plan that sought to privatize one third of state enterprises and two thirds of the housing stock. Restrictions on foreign direct investment were also removed that allowed foreign companies to own up to 100 percent of a business in Kyrgyzstan. The IMF also helped President Akaev create its own currency, the som, along with a national bank to help regulate it after sky rocketing inflation. In addition, President Akaev initiated reforms to create a representative legislature, a free press, a strong civil society, and an independent judiciary.

Before a discussion of the types of reforms President Akaev has pursued, it is important first to understand the meaning of democracy so that one can assess the progress and the level of it. While most political experts accept the notion that democracy is based on a strong level of competition between opposing view-points and participation from all levels of the society, Philosopher David Held provides with a more liberal and thorough definition:

More easy to follow and specific definitions, however, have been created by Freedom House, which are well recognized and useful for the analysis of Kyrgyzstan.

According to Freedom House, two main rights must exist for an effective democracy. The first, political rights, includes the rights of citizens to free and fair presidential and legislative elections. A number of other elements must equally exist such as a right to organize political parties, a significant opposition vote or power, and a freedom from domination by government forces. The second more encompassing, civil rights, includes the freedom of expression and belief, the right to associate and organize, equal protection under law, and personal autonomy and economic rights. Citizens must have access to an independent media and judiciary. They must be able to practice their religion openly and freely, to join an organization without harm, to have open and free private discussion, and to have property rights.

Considering all of these theories and practical democracy examples, President Akaev modeled many of his democratic reforms after the United States using the U.S. constitution as the model for the Kyrgyz constitution, reflecting the principles of development in the theories of modernization and primacy of institutions. After a heated debate on many constitutional issues including whether the president or the parliament should hold the bulk of the power and whether parliament members could hold official government positions, a constitution was created in 1993 that gave the 350-seat parliament strong powers. Many outside observers heralded the constitution, describing Kyrgyzstan as a sovereign, unitary, democratic republic built upon the bases of a legal, secular state where the carriers of sovereignty were the people of Kyrgyzstan.

Tension between President Akaev and the Parliament continued as the latter continued to allege the government and implicitly the President of corruption and worried about destabilizing economic decline. In 1994, the Parliament fell a few votes short of a no-confidence vote in the government, and President Akaev rallied his supporters to dissolve the Parliament by late 1995. President Akaev was able to garner support through the many Parliament Members (PM) he had appointed to government positions throughout the Republic, something which he found essential early on to get anything done but became later a source of tension. In early 1996, the President proposed several constitutional changes to the public in a referendum. Although some international development experts shared concerns about increased power of the President in the constitutional changes, President Akaev claimed that the reforms were necessary because of the weak state of the Republic. These changes included a two-chamber parliament with a total of 105 seats. Foreign policy and domestic policy was now in the hands of the President as opposed to the Parliament. The President was also allowed to appoint through the Prime Minister government ministers without the approval of the Parliament.

The renewed support for the referendum also encouraged President Akaev to continue to his push for civil rights reforms. By 1993, several quasi-autonomous papers emerged with often-critical positions towards the government. Some of the new papers were former publications under Soviet rule that turned to a more thorough analysis of politics and its leaders under the new system. Television and radio, however, remained less critical of the government. In all three mediums, distribution and finance presented significant problems to gaining a wider audience. Finance was made difficult because of the economic situation and distribution by the control many of the regional leaders had on finances and media outlets. Early on, President Akaev faced problems with the newspaper Res Publika, which often emulated Britian’s Private Eye in its publication of semi-libelous stories. Res Publika often published articles accusing government authorities of corruption. This encouraged President Akaev to issue a few decrees to ensure journalists followed the law claiming at the time that these criticisms were largely destructive in a time when the country needed to pull together to climb out of the crisis. Nevertheless, an independent media continued to grow with increasing critical stances of the government.

By 1993, many social and religious organizations were flourishing within Kyrgyzstan. President Akaev had signed a law that created a framework for the activities of associations, interest groups, and political parties. This law required organizations to register with the Ministry of Justice whereby only those organizations that promoted ethnic or religious hatred were denied registration. In late 1993, some 258 social organizations, 15 political parties, 31 professional bodies, 21 national-cultural centers, among others were registered. Despite the growing numbers of organizations, many of them collapsed after initially opening or were redundant in the issues they covered. Some opined that only 20 percent of the social organizations actually functioned in a meaningful way. With no imminent threats to the state from religious organizations, the Akaev government stayed out of religious affairs. Unlike neighboring Central Asian stays, this attitude encouraged hundreds of international missionary organizations to spring up in the Republic with groups such as Jehovah’s Witness and Bahai gaining support. For the most, however, this area of cultural life remained untouched by the government.

Essential to building a liberal democracy that includes a strong amount of competition and participation, President Akeav pushed for strong political parties. To encourage Kyrgyz to have a say in who runs the government and what policies are implemented, the constitution established single member constituencies and a majority electoral system. A few parties developed some strength such as the Communist Party, the Democratic Movement of Krygyzstan (DDK), and the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK). The Communist Party achieved the broadest support among the population although this was mostly among the older generation and the Russians, the latter continually emigrating away from Kyrgyzstan. The remaining parties struggled significantly with building nation-wide membership finding most of their support within a region. Thus, in 1995 only a third of the delegates elected to the Parliament represented a party, the remaining delegates were elected based on regions and personalities.

Despite the difficulties President Akaev encountered in building market and democratic reforms, many international observers continued to praise the Republic’s reform efforts and pour in support. In 1993, Freedom House gave Kyrgyzstan a freedom rating of 4.2 out of seven; one meaning citizens have complete political and civil rights and seven meaning citizens have a complete lack of these rights. This indicated that the Republic was partly free. Even former Vice President Al Gore in a trip to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, called President Akaev "a democrat to the bones as far as we can tell." These reform attempts encouraged many international donors to assist Kyrgyzstan. The top donors by 1999 included Japan, the Asian Development Bank, the United States, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Community.

TRANSITION (POST-1999)

All of these reforms helped improve, although slightly, key structural transformation indicators. If one looks at the difference between the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 1993 and 2000 one can see that it has increased by 191 USD. Please refer to the chart, Kyrgyzstan Economic Indicators, at the back of this document. GDP real growth improved from –15.5 percent in 1993 to 5 percent in 2000. The Current Account deficit also decreased as exports increased by 10 percent in 2000. The increase in exports and per capital income seems to be mostly from the excavation of the gold reserves; although, there was a 57 percent increase in power exports probably from refinements to the hydroelectric power plants. This increase in raw materials along with a 4 percent decline in the amount of GDP from the industry section is troubling news for achieving structural adjustment even if the amount of GDP from services section of the economy rose 6 percent in 2000.

What factors help explain why Kyrgyzstan is struggling to achieve a stronger structural transformation? First, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of managers, subsidies, and purchases have severely hurt the Kyrgyz economy. Hundreds of Russian managers fled the country after the fall of the Soviet Union taking with them the expertise of how to run factories. Also, Kyrgyzstan relied on thousands of subsidies and purchases from the Soviet Union to operate and maintain its factories. Many of these factories were forced to close just after independence. Second, the Kyrgyz population is still struggling with the concept of privatization and a liberal market. Many Kyrgyz still believe that the government will not let their business fail, and many others are taking advantage of incredibly low share prices on businesses. Several thrifty businesspersons have bought shares of companies at low prices and resold them to older people for higher prices making enormous profits. Third, an inadequate legal framework, one of the important conditions to transition according to Georg Søremsen, to protect businesses and people from corruption remains a serious problem. Corruption in the government and in business is growing so much so that some experts say that as much as 10 percent of goods traded is done on the black market. Fourth, as was mentioned earlier, most of the growth has come from gold mining while investment in factories and other more industrial types of production needs expansion. Fifth, poor transportation infrastructure hurts investment, tourism, and prevents Kyrgyz entrepreneurs from selling their products in neighboring countries competitively. Nevertheless, reasons to look on the bright side for Kyrgyz development exist.

A few of the key indicators for growth with equity have increased from 1993 to 2000. Life expectancy rose by nearly 3 percent from 1993 to 2000. The number of infant mortality rates per 1000 births dropped 10 points in the same comparison years. Literacy rates rose slightly from 97 percent in 1993 to 98 percent in 2000. The level of education and health care seems to remain somewhat reliable as surveys done by the United Nations Development Program in 1998 indicated that most people including the poor are mostly satisfied with these services. In education, however, a number of experts are concerned about the cancellation of preschool, the increasing number of high school dropouts, and the deterioration of tertiary schools. More troubling is the steadily increasing income distribution between the rich and the poor. From 1993 to 2000, the ratio of those 20 percent who earned the highest income and those 20 percent who earned the lowest income grew 5 points. Also, poverty has almost doubled in a decade. In 1993, the amount of the Kyrgyzstani population living in poverty was 45 percent where as in 2000 it was 52 percent.

A number of reasons help explain the unequal distribution of growth in Kyrgyzstan. Corruption, as mentioned above, remains a major problem for the poor. Corrupt national and local politicians continue to steal millions of dollars intended for the poor or for taxes. This has caused government revenues to dwindle significantly reducing the welfare provisions and government services given to the poor. According to a recent public opinion survey sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme, corruption and squandering of governmental funds and property is the leading reason to effective economic reform. Those individuals working in the industry section of the economy has also dropped from 21 percent in 1993 to 12 percent in 2000. Finally, the poor continue to receive less access and lower quality to overall social services. An unemployment assistance program hardly exists. In the south, access to water has been interrupted often enough, forcing families to dig unsanitary reservoirs. Access to heating and hot water has also diminished over the last few years.

Despite all of these positive efforts to bring democracy to Kyrgyzstan, the level of democracy by 1999 to 2000 was severely weak. According to Freedom House, political rights received a score of 6, not free, and civil liberties received a score of 5, partly free, in Kyrgyzstan (see Kyrgystan’s Governance Indicators at the back of this document). This is a drastic change from 1993 when Freedom House gave Kyrgyzstan an overall rating of 4.2, partly free; Kyrgyzstan’s overall rating is now 5.5, not free. More recently, the lack of citizens’ ability to choose whom they want for President and the Parliament along with the inability of citizens or organizations to oppose the government are among the most damaging factors to these indicators and to democratic rule.

After the 2000 Presidential elections, the creditability of the government to hold free and fair elections was severely damaged. The government prevented the largest opposition candidates from running by creating last minute election regulations, finding minor election violations, and making questionable judicial decisions. Felix Kulov, former vice president of Kyrgyzstan and strong opponent of President Akayev, was prevented from running because of a last minute election regulation that required him take a Kyrgyz language test, which he declined. Another strong opposition to President Akayev was Daniyar Usenov was barred from the election because of previous criminal convictions, which he denies. President Askayev won the election with 74.4 percent of the total of votes.

The 2000 Presidential elections also saw the government go after opposition parties and candidates for Parliament. The Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan lost its registration because of a new rule that barred parties from running if they didn’t have quorum for their party congress. One candidate lost his registration for a seat in Parliament because he had not resigned his public post when he attempted to register for the election, a rule that had just been created. Preventing candidates from running wasn’t the only method the government used to keep out unwanted candidates. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) along with the domestic intelligentsia also reported complaints of misconduct in the counting of ballots. As expected, the election turned out to be one of the biggest losses for the opposition parties and candidates.

It is difficult to provide a full and exact description as to why political rights have deteriorated so egregiously in the last half of the 1990s, but a few reasons stand out more than others. As the central democracy catalyst in Kyrgyzstan, President Akaev is in a position to mitigate erosions on democratic principles. Yet, even in 1995, President Akayev spoke of the need to take democracy slowly. He claimed that states that had western forms of democracy had a strong economy with clearly defined property relations. There was also a mature civil society and strong institutional structures that supported a democratic political culture and well developed political parties. These elements, he said, were all lacking in Kyrgyzstan along with a severely weak state unable to tackle future problems. Thus, a slower transition to democracy was needed.

The traditional clan heritage provided reasons why the political culture and parties were weak. In order to encourage any reforms in the Parliament, President Akaev needed the support of the clan or regional leaders for their vote in Parliament and the support of the citizens in their respective regions. Yet, he also needed to get rid of the local leaders to eliminate corruption and to strengthen national political parties since many of the candidates are elected on the basis of their region or personality. This became a catch-22 as President Akaev needed the support of the clan leaders and he needed to get rid of them. He tried to mitigate the power of the regional clan leaders by imposing rotating regional leaders, but the leaders who stayed for longer rotation periods aligned with the local networks and the leaders who stayed for shorter periods weren’t there long enough to really know the issues. Local elections were also useless since regional leaders, which often provided economic incentives, controlled the elections.

Other more structural problems potentially prevented a stronger political culture and parties from emerging. Many experts have looked to the weakened Parliament after the 1996 referendum to explain why the PMs were unwilling to organize into party formations. It was thought that since PMs had less authority to make things happen in the government that they worked less in building coalitions. This, however, is doubtful since the Parliament remains a critical and effective check on the government. Others were surprised that the adoption of single member constituencies and a majority electoral system didn’t encourage larger political party formation, but as has been seen across the globe it takes more than just laws to encourage citizens and politicians to act in a different manner.

Although political rights are at a troubling state, a small amount of freedoms still exist in civil liberties. Relatively few journalists feel like their lives are threatened by government officials, but their freedom to express how they feel especially when it’s opposed to the government is hampered. More than eight journalists in the last three years have seen cases brought against them for opposing government policies and the rulings of judges. Government officials have also prevented publications from printing for more than four months because of pending libel suits. More appalling, the Ministry of Justice instituted a new registration policy that prevented several opposition magazines from existing and decreased the amount of publications from 600 to 147.

According to the Kyrgyz Constitution and the Law on Public Organizations, the government guarantees basic freedoms of association. As of early 2002, between 600 and 1,000 NGOs exist in Kyrgyzstan. Religious organizations have been for the most part free of harassment except for a few Islamic fundamentalist organizations that have reported connections to the Taliban. As seen above, however, the government often uses violations of regulations to harass opposition organizations. The government revoked the registration of the Kyrgyz Commission of Human Rights (KCHR) because it advocated the rights of political activists. NGOs supporting an Uigur ethnic minority have also been harassed. The government has also made it difficult to conduct political protests and opposition rallies since police at times have arrested and beaten opposition protesters.

Although the government often works against NGOs, NGOs still have an opportunity to influence government decisions through government roundtables and public forums. President Akayev and other government department heads sometimes ask NGOs for specific reports to be written on important issues such as interethnic relations, conflict prevention, and legal reforms. Yet, the strongest trade union, the Federation of Trade Union of Kyrgystan (FTUK), struggles to put its concerns on the public agenda. Most workers feel that this union and other unions are ineffective in defending their rights. Unions rarely protest and companies often ignore their concerns.

The rule of law in Kyrgyzstan in practice is struggling. According to Kyrgyz law, the President has the power to nominate and terminate the procurators with the consent of the upper house of the Parliament. Although a number of strong democratic countries have a system similar to this, the President has influenced numerous judicial decisions. For example, the President’s strongest political opposition candidate, Felix Kulov, was recently convicted of using the government’s power for personal influence and received a sentence of seven years. It appears that outside of two minority groups, the Ugirs and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, organizations that oppose the government are the most prosecuted against. In both of these cases police have not followed proper search warrant procedures and in extreme cases committed acts of torture.

The level of corruption and unfairness in economic rights is one of the leading factors preventing economic growth and trust in the government. When President Akayev began the mass-privatization of public companies, many new companies were acquired with dubious deals. This encouraged government officials to capitalize on businesses that were breaking the law by accepting bribes during investigations. After continued complaints about these types of activities, the government passed a law to prevent government officials from participating in business activities and for increased transparency of official’s accounts. Yet, the business community continues to complain that they are unable to conduct legitimate business, and that they are forced to bribe dozens of officials from various regulating state agencies. Other reports include the inability of citizens to receive passports, visas, business licenses, and other permits without bribes to government officials.

The main reasons Kyrgyzstan is falling behind on its civil liberties appears to be President Akaev’s and other government officials’ fears that the media and opposition groups will discredit the state so much so that it will prevent the government from managing day to day needs and following through with reforms. Of particular concern is the libelous stories printed by Res Publika. President Akaev also talks about the damaging critiques of certain opposition parties, claiming that instead of helping encourage a healthy policy debate they discourage it by blasting that a new government is needed without providing constructive solutions. This along with a raising religious extremism from the Islamic fundamentalists and others has encouraged the government to clamp down on organizational and religious life. Finally, the low salaries of judges and the continued impunity of clan and regional leaders within the political system help explain the corruption and lack of a fair and independent judiciary.

CONCLUSION

Despite President Akaev’s recent actions to maintain his power, he has significantly contributed to making a number of positive moves towards building BBSD in Kyrgyzstan. His initiatives to privatize government institutions, to release price controls, and to create a national currency and bank have also contributed to the reduction of the inflation rate and the growth of GDP per capita and the amount of exports. Even though most of the growth is from the gold mines, the income wouldn’t have been there without his initiated changes and the support of foreign states and international lending institutions. Yet, Kyrgyzstan has a long ways to go before it achieves complete structural transformation and growth with equity. It needs to develop more capital-intensive products and improve its amount of exports in the industry sector. It needs to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and push for efforts to reduce poverty. The President and the members of the Parliament will have to tackle corruption by establishing and enforcing legal rights and protections in business and civil life.

President Akaev’s moves to restrict political and civil rights, however, are of more concern. The continued deterioration of citizen’s right to chose their presidential and legislative leaders, to form political, social, and religious organizations, and to have equal rights under the law need to significantly improve for the Republic to raise its Freedom House freedom rating. Chief among the elements that President Akaev must address to improve this rating is to mitigate the negative effects of the patron-client relationships among clans and regional leaders. Providing for a more independent media and a voice for the opposition are equally important. The most difficult challenge, however, will be for the President to release his grips on power.

Despite the increased negative freedom rating, reasons to look on the bright side for Kyrgyzstan exist. In the last part of 2002, a number of democratic reforms were pushed through and signed by President Akaev. Although the results of these changes have yet to be seen, the reforms on paper address some of the more serious issues. For example, the economy has according to some experts fully stabilized after an IMF fiscal budget bailout. A major tax reform and vital legal reform were approved. A human rights ombudsman was sworn in with significant powers. More importantly, the citizens of Kyrgyzstan believe in where the country is heading and in democracy, and President Akaev continues to push for democratic reforms. In this atmosphere, it is increasingly important to consider supporting this country in what ever way it requests. After all, in a neighborhood of dominating autocratic governments, it still presents itself as diamond in the rough although worn from growing pains.

Bibliography

Abazov, F. Rafis. 2002. Nations in Transit: Kyrgyz Republic. Washington, DC: Freedom House. http://www.freedomhouse.org.

Anderson, John. Kyrgyzstan: central asia’s island of democracy? Amsterdam: hardwood academic, 1999.

Aslund, Anders. "The Kyrgyz Republic Needs Higher Growth through Export Expansion," United Nations Development Programme. http://www.undp.kg. 25 March 2002.

Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. 2001. "Background Note: Kyrgyzstan." U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5755.htm (September 17, 2002).

Collins, Kathleen. 2002. "Clan, Pacts, and Politics in Central Asia." Journal of Democracy 13(3): 137-152.

Freedom House. 2002. "Kyrgyz Republic." http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2002/countryratings/kyrgyz

(September 28, 2002).

Geran Pilon, Juliana, 1998. "Democratic Transition in Central Asia: An Assessment," SAIS Review 18(2): 89-103.

Kaiser, Robert G., "Difficult Times For a Key Ally In Terror War; Kyrgyzstan’s Politics, Economy in Turmoil," The Washington Post 5 August 2002.

Linz, Juan J., Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Murat, Ercan. 2002. "Democratic Governance: Alternatives Approaches to Kyrgyzstan’s Future Development. National Human Development Report. United Nations Development Program. http://www.undp.org/.

Perkins, Dwight H., et al. Economics of Development. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Sørensen, Georg. 1993. Democracy and Democratization: Processes and Prospects in a Changing World. Boulder: Westview Press.

Scott, Kinnon. 2001. "Kyrgyz Republic: Poverty in the 1990s in the Kyrgyz Republic." Report No. 21721-KG. Human Development Department. The World Bank.

Törnquist, Olle. Politics and Development: A Critical Introduction. London: SAGE Publications, 1999.

United Nations Development Programme. 2002. "Kyrgyzstan." Programmes. http://www.undp.kg/english/?p=s (October 28, 2002).

United States Department of State. 2002. "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices." http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8276pf.htm (November 1, 2002).

Verheijen, Tony. 2001. "Reform on the Silk Road." Local Government Brief, Summer 2001.