Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey that explores what Central Eurasia might look like fifteen years from now.

In his most recent post, Vadim predicts a bright future for Tajikistan 15 years from now. While I also have optimistic expectations of the country’s prospects, I believe we will inevitably face more negative developments in a decade.

The bad thing about corruption is that it has a long-lasting effect. I am confident that we will not be able to create working mechanisms to fight corruption even in a decade. The longer people live in the atmosphere of corruption and booming patron-client relations, the more difficult it will be for them to learn to live without it. So, in 15 years we will still have corrupt officials and people willing to solve their problems “quicker” and “easier” by offering bribes and “gifts”.

Another dark side of corruption is that it has allowed some individuals and groups within the society becoming extremely rich while the majority of the population lived in poverty. In 15 years, as the memories of the civil war will fade away and tyrannical regimes similar to Turkmenbashi’s will give way to more democratic governments in the region, our citizens might want to question the results of privatization and demand their “share” of the public good. So, corruption creates a fertile ground for social instability in the future.

I would also very much like to see Tajikistan’s economy developing in the next decades. I am afraid though that in the next 10 to 15 years we not have skilled employees to ensure the growth of Tajik economy. Young people studying today at universities throughout the country will graduate with anything but adequate skills and expertise. This is especially true for law and business schools which are most corrupt and medical and education schools extremely unpopular with students. We do not have modern business, public administration, and IT schools. Without them, the country will not be able to develop.

Another problem we will have in 15 years is connected with the demographic situation. As the birthrates continue to be very high, there will be a greater pressure on the country’s scarce arable land. As the soil degradation continues and our cotton sector destroys the best lands, the country’s growing population will face acuter shortage of food. Besides, if the current demographic trends continue in the next decade, labor migration will create a society where we will have much more women than men. And Tajik men will continue to bring home AIDS from other countries.

There are also other negative phenomena and developments that we might face over the next decade. And of course there should be ways of avoiding or minimizing these negative effects. This blog is a perfect place to start discussion of our future and ways of making it better.

The Ayni-Penjikent road along the Zerafshan river is a fantastically scenic route. After another three to four hour drive, interrupted at some point by a traffic police officer soliciting “choypuli”, we arrived in Penjikent.

The town has certainly changed since the 1990s. It looks more abandoned now. Driving along the major street that used to be “Lenin Street” and was later renamed to “Rudaki” we do not see many passersby.

“There are not many people left in Penjikent,” said Maysara Holikova, teacher in a secondary school. “Most men are working in Russia. Younger boys study in Dushanbe and Khujand. Some women are also in Russia”.

Although the town was not involved in the civil war, it was hardly hit by its effects. Local plants and factories were closed; schools and hospitals were abandoned by highly skilled employees who left the country for Russia. Being geographically and economically closer to the Uzbek town of Samarkand than to any significant Tajik town, Penjikent was most hardly affected bythe Uzbek authorities’ decision to close and mine the border and introduce visa regime.

“It is a dead place,” said Anvar, taxi driver. “There are no jobs for most people. Factories do not work. There is the Taror Gold Plant and some activity in the tobacco plant. Nothing else”.

Taror Gold Plant is one of the rare enterprises in Tajikistan that has managed to attract foreign investment in the 1990s. Since 1997 when the plant was opened, local staff could earn 100 to 200 US dollars a month here. Many residents of the Penjikent district depend on the plant in terms of income. The bad news is that the volume of gold produced in Taror has been reducing over the last years. There are rumors now that the South-African company owning the plant will soon have to close down the production.

“The town is so isolated that even most relief organizations don’t want to come here,” said Rajab, employee of the NGO Save the Children. “Some international organizations visit the place from time to time, do some work and then disappear. There is no consistency in their relief efforts in the district”.

The hope for Penjikent has recently come – as not so far in the past – from Russia. Russia’s world class energy company RAO EES announced it will build three medium-size hydropower plants in the Zerafshan valley. While the project is still far from implementation, RAO EES’s energetic construction of Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant makes many people feel optimistic about the prospects of power plants on the Zerafshan.

Despite severe economic and social hardships, Penjikent is certainly a place with tremendous development potential. Experts suggest that tourism could become the major source of revenues for the town. Penjikent has much to offer foreign tourists.

Penjikent is one of the most ancient towns in Central Asia. On a high, valley terrace, 1,5 km from the modern town are the ruins of ancient Penjikent or Bunjikath, a major Sogdian town founded in the 5th century and destroyed by Arabs in the 8th century. The foundations of houses, a citadel with a couple of Zoroastrian temples, and the city bazaar are still visible in the excavated ruins. But the best of the frescoes (some of them 15 meters long), sculptures, pottery and manuscripts have been taken off to the Tashkent History Museum and St Petersburg’s Hermitage.

On the other side of the town are the ruins of Sarazm, a town of the Bronze Age. Besides, Penjikent is a birthplace of Rudaki, the founder of Persian poetry. Rudaki’s mausoleum is an interesting piece of modern Central Asian architecture.

“Tourism could have a great impact on Penjikent,” said Ali Odinaev, manager in a small tourist company. “We just need to build better roads and a hotel and advertise the place. People would come to see Bunjikath, Sarazm, Rudaki’s mausoleum and the Seven Lakes”

Saparmurat Niyazov was buried at a mausoleum on the grounds of Central Asia’s last mosque, the Turkmenbsahi Rukhy, in his hometown on Sunday. Tens of thousands of people turned out to pay their last respects, accompanied by a number of foreign diplomatic delegations, RIA Novosti reported:

As the procession made its way to Kipchak, where Niyazov was born, jets of the country’s air force as well as helicopters flew by.
Before the burial ceremony a general prayer was said by the nation’s leading mullah, while behind him hundreds of attendants prayed on a gigantic white carpet.

The mausoleum is also the burial place of Niyazov’s parents and brothers.
It is probable that, as has happened with other authoritarian leaders in the past, people wanted to check with their own eyes that the president really was dead, a fact that has been questioned by some opposition figures. This they were able to do in Ashgabat, where Niyazov lay in rest.
All shops and offices will be closed in sign of respect.
Around 20 countries sent an official delegation to the funeral. The presidents of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan were expected to be present, as well as various heads of government and parliamentarians. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov also attended. Western countries will be represented by accredited diplomatic staff. The United States sent the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher, who remarked before leaving for Turkmenistan that he hoped for a new era in relations between the United States and Turkmenistan. In Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko charged his prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, to represent his delegation. Kiev will, naturally, be keen to be seen a properly respectful position towards Turkmen officials in view of the crucial role that gas from the Central Asian state has in keeping their energy costs down. The recent partial restoration of amicable terms between Moscow and Kiev will be interesting to observe as foreign governments circle the new emerging order in Turkmenistan in search of points of leverage.
The Azeri delegation, who will also be curious to investigate how the new government may affect the ongoing dispute over Caspian delimitation rights, included Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and the deputy Foreign Minister Halaf Halafov.
In the city, everything seems as normal, reports RIA-Novosti. Shops are open for business and classes are being held as usual in the universities. However, in respect of the seven-day period of mourning, no alcoholic beverages can be sold in shops, bars or restaurants.
As for what will come after the burial of Niyazov, the Turkmen representative at the United Nations in New York, Aksoltan Atayev, has said that the dead leaders’ policy will continued to be pursued.

“He did everything he could for the best of the simple people of his country,” Atayeva said

This may be little more than customary lip service to the recently departed, but it is nonetheless reminiscent of the fact that whatever should happen, rapid change is not and cannot be possible. For all the bogus qualities that Niyazov’s personality cult may have had, it has still left a indelible cultural legacy and an overwhelming physical one. Even an unlikely vehemently anti-Niyazov ascendant would be ill-advised to consider pulling down statues and renaming streets, monuments and cities. Niyazov’s skewed identity politics did in some way perform the function of creating a formal sense of cultural unity, which would be rash to begin unstitching at the seams.
What motivates Kurbanguli Berdymukhammedov, however, may not be the integrity of the country but his own preservation of power. While speaking at the national Security Council, Cabinet and Majlis meetings, Berdymukhammedov recognisably mimicked Niyazov’s conduct and speech patterns, as Batyr Djumaev wrote in an article for Centrasia.ru. One early televised statement to the nation was made in Niyazov’s office, as he sat in front of a portrait of Niyazov. When he spoke at the Majlis, he even addressed the presidium alone and spoke in a fashion that very much resembled Niyazov. As Djumaev notes:

Ministers at the Cabinet meeting recalled the ministers under Niyazov — even to the point of having the same notepads in front of them, which they energetically scribbled in so as not to have to make eye contact with their superior.

Djumaev suggests that these artless tactics may be an intentional deploy to maximise the effectiveness of Berdymukhammedov’s ride to power. A similar techniques of projection onto an iconic predecessor was utilised by Stalin, when he succeeded Lenin as General Secretary of the Communist Party. Hence the slogan, “Stalin — Lenin today”. In that sense, the persistent speculation about the familial link between the acting president and his predecessor may be little more than a contrivance to beguile the country’s captive polity. This is continuity in a very literal sense, which hardly augurs well for the fate of the nation.
As Djumaev also observes, Berdymukhammedov has begun his rule with an arrest, a fact that can only be an omen of further actions in this guise. And yet while Niyazov was already a consolidated leader that would still resort to arbitrary shuffles to ensure his enduring rule, Berdymukhammedov may need to shed several high-placed individuals before he can feel confident in his place. He will be unwilling to give way to any colleague that has been cultivated in the virtually Stalinist mode of governance that has defined post-independence Turkmenistan.
As for Niyazov’s legacy, Adjar Krutov is more forgiving. Without making concessions for his cruelty — Niyazov is in turn compared to Stalin, Peter the Great, and Mao — Krutov is complimentary of the Turkmen leader’s efforts to avoid the de-industrialisation of his country; a unique feat among CIS leaders. Under Niyazov, hundreds of new industrial complexes have been built in numerous sectors of the economy. Also, for all the scorn rightly heaped on Niyazov’s idiosyncratic international negotiation in the energy sector, he did invest significant effort into diversifying the output of Turkmenistan’s natural wealth, building refineries that could boost the export products’ market value.
The competing quantities of legacy and succession will be on partial view Sunday, when the emerging leadership will doubtlessly strive to eulogise their departed leader while making their own bid for legitimacy. Niyazov may be dead, but his lingering influence will still make itself felt on contemporary developments.

In two more developments, Turkmenistan expert and Vremya Novostei correspondent Arkady Dubnov gave a press conference at the RIA-Novosti press agency in which he revealed that according to information in his possession, close Saparmurat Niyazov confindante and treasurer Alexander Zhadan went missing the day before Niyazov’s death.

“According to information I have, on the evening before President Nyyazow’s death, his personal aide-de-camp Alexander Zhadan disappeared from Ashgabat with very important documents,” Dubnov said at a news conference on Friday.

Dubnov claims that Zhadan has control over all Niyazov’s financial dealings. A combination of this and the possible billions salted away in Western bank accounts may mean that Turkmenistan is a considerably poorer country today.
Niyazov and Zhadan were old family friends and the treasurer also held the position of deputy head of the presidential administration, which put him a position of great responsibility.
In a separate development, the initiative to disregard constitutional practice picked up further steam on Friday after interim president Kurbanguly Berdymukhammedov sacked the chairman of the Majlis Ovezgeldy Atayev, the person who is supposed to take the provisional leadership of the country in the event of the president’s death. In a televised dismissal reminescent of Niyazov’s practices, Berdymukhamedov stripped Atayev of his immunity, telling him:

“You have been relieved from the post of parliament speaker.”

This followd the start on Thursday of unspecified criminal investigations into Atayev’s activities. Akdzha Nurberdyeva was named as the new Majlis speaker.
RIA-Novosti also reports that a new Khalk Maslahaty chairman will need to named at the next session, which is to take place on Dec. 26. According to the constitution, the candidate can be no younger than 55, must speak Turkmen, have lived in the country for the last ten years, be a current member of the body, and have occupied a high position in the government. These reuirements inevitably narrow the list, but the Minister of Defense Agageldy Mamedgeldyev has already been tipped to get the necessary two-thirds approval.

Interim President Kurbanguly Berdymukhammedov at last month’s CIS meeting in Minsk

There is an interesting nuance to this prediction in that his neutralisation in this largely ceremonial position would put another high-ranking militarily well-connected figure out of the running for the presidency. Azeri political scientist Rauf Rajabov has suggested that the most likely candidate to emerge on top will be the one with the authority to enforce stability and who can ward off the threat of Islamist fringe groups. Once again, this points in the direction of the chief of the presidential guard General Akmurad Rejepov, who may settle with being the eminence grise to Berdymukhammedov.

“We are not forced, we are ‘asked politely,’ explains Vladimir, a young teacher of English in a local gymnasium, “but I told them I am not going to play this game anymore.” The “game” Vladimir is referring to is the Kazakhstani and Oblast governments’ policy of requiring public school teachers to purchase government-approved newspapers.

Few places in Kazakhstan is the soul-crushing bureaucracy felt as acutely as in public schools, and it is often teachers who bear the brunt of the Education Department and central governments’ administrative whims. Taken in this context, the practice of “asking teachers politely” to purchase government-approved newspapers is merely a “trifle,” according to one local college instructor. For her and for most teachers, the primary problem with this policy is the money it takes out of their pockets; thoughts of freedom of information or expression rarely enter their calculus. Still, for Westerners accustomed to a healthy oppositional relationship between the government and the press, there seem to be deeper issues here.

Approximately every three months, all public teachers in Kazakhstan are required to fork out about 400 or 500 Tenge to purchase newspapers from a list they receive from the government. While this is not an astronomical sum of money (equal to about $3.50 or $4.00 at current exchange rates), it is enough to cause some teachers consternation. And when multiplied by the thousands of teachers across the nation, it does become quite a significant source of funds for the papers. “Nobody would buy these papers [without this pressure],” stresses Vladimir, “and these papers would disappear in a year.” Read the full story »

Opposition leaders were swift in reacting to the absence of leadership in Turkmenistan and one of the earliest comments was from the chairman of the Watan opposition group and former deputy Prime Minister Khudaiberdy Orazov. He placed the emphasis on consultation, which may indicate that contingency plans among the notoriously fractious and scattered opposition have never been properly formulated. Watan’s own website itself functions as little more than a clearing house for information appearing in other media, although it performs a valuable function in gathering the amount of information that it does. The hours after Saparmurat Nityazov’s death initiated a flurry of postings from Russian and Western press on that site, but not much by way of a blueprint for how the exiled political community intends to seize this historic opportunity.
One concrete attempt at reaching the country, however, has already ended in failure, as Ukrainian web site Korrespondent.ru reported. Batyr Muhammedshin, who describes himself as a representative of the united Turkmen opposition and the shadow Mister of Justice explained how a plane chartered specially for the operation was turned back from Ashgabat:

“The most important issue is the return of the opposition,” he said, noting that the Turkmen authorities had forbidden him from doing this. Many leaders of the opposition live in Western Europe and Scandinavia.
“The new government has closed the border,” Muhammedshin said, adding that the civil aviation service in Ashgabat refused authorisation for the arrival of a chartered plane, flying from Sweden to Turkmenistan via Moscow, filled with opposition activists.
“The airline organising the chartered flight held talks with the aviation service in Ashgabat. But they were told a ban had been imposed on all flights and that any incoming planes would be shot down,” Muhammedshin said.
He also said that opposition leaders are expecting to hold a meeting in a European city and that they are counting on the support of the international community.
“The alternative to our return to Turkmenistan is the continuation of course undertaken by Niyazov,” he said. He also added that he did not genuinely believe that Niyazov was actually dead.

Precisely what kind of legitimate support the international community will be able to give is not so clear. Previous opposition congresses have been lent international support, but have resulted in very little constructive and collaborative results. Leaving aside the vanities of all the varying jostling figures, there are certain issues that have inevitably served to hamstring any galvanised opposition.
The greatest complicating question for the opposition is that many of them are invariably tainted by their erstwhile association with Niyazov’s regime. The best-known historical focal point of the opposition, Boris Shikhmuradov, whose was jailed in 2003 for an alleged assassination conspiracy against Niyazov, vigorously but unconvincingly claimed to have had no part in the regime’s excesses, in spite of his vicinity to the president for many years. Notably, the spurned establishment figure turning against his former allies has become something of a constant in the former Soviet space, and may have something to do with the compromised quality of some of the colour revolutions to have taken place. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia have all produced anti-system political personalities that have emerged from the establishment itself. While in those countries, these politicians have tried and continue to try to overcome this apparent handicap, Turkmen opposition figures are obviously limited by the absolute embargo that is placed on their ability to appeal to the population directly; this being the second stumbling block for any prospective opposition.
Not only do the wider population not have any concrete understanding of who the alternatives to the Niyazov nomenklatura might be, but perhaps more worryingly, these individuals themselves have lost any real fundamental grasp of the issues that could serve to lead the country out of its current blind alley. The occasional article in the Western press is about as much as concession the opposition seem prepared to offer to matters of popular welfare. Meanwhile, the plight of powerlessness is discussed in the setting of parallel parliaments and shadow governments, where the finer points of a national constitution that has never meant very much to anybody is discussed. It is a profound irony that Turkmenistan should nominally hold its founding charter with such reverence as to have a national holiday in its honour (notably, more readily celebrated by the population as a day dedicated to their national poet, Magtymguly), and yet very first thing that is done on the occasion of the single most important event in Turkmenistan’s post-independence history is to flout it in the most flagrant manner by ignoring its provisions for succession. The point being that a self-appointed body based in Europe to discuss a largely meaningless document seems like a strange way to organise an alternative to arbitrary despotism.
Those who have displayed the startling bravery of staying and resisting in their own small way have paid a tragic price, however, and it is in this area that the international community’s efforts should most immediately be made visible. One useful example is the call from Reporters Without borders for the release of journalists under arrest:

“We demand the release of all jailed journalists and human right workers, currently held in Turkmen prisons in unbearable conditions,” a Reporters Without Frontiers representative said. “Many have been imprisoned simply for cooperating with international media.”

This would come too late for Olguspar Muradova, who died in detention in September this year, but there may still be hope for Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurd Hadjiev, who have not been seen or heard from for numerous months. As the journalists’ organisation also notes, not a single one of the 10,000 prisoners released in the amnesty on Oct. 16 was a journalist.

At the same time, some strands of the opposition have urged caution before charging into the country with plans for regime change. Another former prime minister and minister for oil and gas Nazar Suyunov has spoken out against any hastened return to Turkmenistan of exiled individuals, warning that this could create a climate of crisis.

“If the opposition suddenly turn up there, it could all turn out very messy,” he said.

Instead, the opposition should await the announcement of elections, at which point they can return and participate in a proper electoral process, Suzunov argued.
Interim president Kurbanguly Berdymukhammedov raised this very issue on Friday, saying that a date would be called at the next Khalk Maslahaty meeting, to be held two days after Niyazov’s funeral, on Dec. 26. Prospective candidates for the presidency will be named on that day, Berdymukhammedov said, Interfax reported Friday.
This may be an occasion for Berdymukhammedov to put forward the name of head of the presidential guard Akmurad Rejepov, or perhaps to make a symbolic pass at rejecting his own coronation by a pliant Khalk Maslahaty. It should be fascinating to see how this largely symbolic body of public representation performs its duties and what, if any, evidence of opposition will be on show there. For some background on this institutional body, what follows is a translation of an article by Adjar Krutov appearing on a Russian language site specialising in Central Asian affairs some weeks ago:

This institution is recognised under the law as the “highest permanent representative organ of the people’s rule, possessing the highest authority of power of the state and leadership”. Only at first glance it seems that this florid formulation merely hides an organ more commonly known elsewhere as a parliament. However, from a legal point of view the Khalk Maslahaty is not so much a parliament as a synthesis of two other historical phenomena.
First, Khalk Maslahaty, which is roughly equivalent to “national gathering”, is indeed reminiscent of pre-state and primitive pre-state tribe gatherings that distinguished the period of the development of society. Formally, the decisions of these meetings have the highest force and this is an undoubted merit of this type of institution. But everyone knows from history, interested people can learn to manipulate the masses and influence them into adopting pre-defined decisions.
Second, it is quite evident that there is much in common between the Turkmen variant of the Khalk Maslahaty and the Bolshevik Soviets of 1920s and 30s. The similarity lies, first and foremost, in the stipulation by Leninist theory that “workers’ corporations”, soviets, like the Khalk Maslahaty, are based on the opposing concepts about the separation of the systems of power. In both cases, what were nominally described as being in “the same bottle”, were artificially uninted in the region of two separate branches of governance – the legislative and the executive. To study the composition of the Khalk Maslahaty, it might even be possible to argue for a further incorporation of authorities that also takes in the judiciary. The Bolshevik soviets systems also embodied the notion that on a political level, there could be no recognition of pluralism – a fundamental requirement for a modern civilisation. In this monolithic format, political representation is permitted only in the context of the single political party and its auxiliary social organisations.
Finally, there is an explicit procedural similarity: The Khalk Maslahaty, as used to be the case with soviet congresses, is a very infrequent event and last a total of a few days. An obvious fact derives from all these specific features: neither of these organs have had the ability to adequately fulfil the function of representational power.
The adoption of a new law necessitates discussion, the confrontation of opposing ideas, and a prolonged and thoughtful consideration of the essentials of its constituent standards. And this is exactly what does not occur. In the Khalk Maslahaty, as at the soviet congresses, an enormous hall harmoniously applauds preconceived solutions. With the Bolsheviks, the solutions would be prepared in the depths of the communist party apparatus, while in Turkmenistan this function is performed by an apparatus headed by the president. That is to say, congresses and Khalk Maslahaty serve a purely ritual need; a decorative feature.
We will take it as given that it is to this end that the Turkmen Khalk Maslahaty was created, which is composed, in part, of the president, the Mejlis deputies, the chairman of the Supreme Court, members of the government, leaders of the local municipalities, and functionaries of social organisations. Altogether the body counts 2507 members.

A Russian perspective on the role that might be acquitted by the exiled opposition in this key moment has also been put forward by prominent political scientist Sergei Markov, who agrees that they will have a role to perform.
As Markov suggests, although many former state officials have left Turkmenistan, they left allies behind and can therefore still wield some influence.

“When the battle for power gets underway between the various elites groups, then the opposition will want to return to the country. Those groups that have started the struggle will be hoping for their support.
The danger is that as battle begins, various outside political forces could attempt to influence the course of events by supporting one or another group”

The bogeyman for many in Russia is the White House, which expressed its condolences for Niyazov’s death on Thursday and said in a statement that it hoped to consolidate and build on relations between the United States and Turkmenistan.
Once again, with the death of Niyazov and a new leaderhsip in place, the chimerical Trans-Caspian may start to be raised again, but more seriously. Such an arrangement is becoming ever more tempting to the West, which is seeking at all costs to alienate an growingly confident Russia. The pipeline would be the magic bullet that the West has been seeking in both its commercial interests and its geopolitical considerations. The prospect of affordable gas purchased at the expense of the Russians and the Chinese seems too tempting a prospect not to consider.
And the Europeans, for all the talk of value-based relationships, will not be backward in coming forward. Yet more rumours have it that the European Union’s special envoy to Central Asia Pierre Morel, formerly French ambassador to Turkmenistan, has paid a flying visit to Ashgabat since Niyazov’s death, a repeat on his earlier stay on Dec. 18. Likewise, Russian business daily RBK reported, a Gazprom official dropped in to ascertain who exactly was shaping up to be Niyazov’s successor.
Furthermore, much has been made of the German EU presidency and the prominence that Central Asia may adopt on the European foreign affairs agenda at that time. It was more commonly anticipated that Uzbekistan would be subject of the organisation’s rapprochement, although German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier did pay an official visit to Ashgabat earlier this year, but the new scenario means all bets are off.
The near abroad dimension also presents more curious scenarios. If Ashgabat were lured into the Western camp that would leave Iran surrounded on all sides by potential diplomatic antagonists. Iran’s own gas export policy could thrown to the four winds by any similar shift.
To the north, Uzbekistan panicked on hearing the news coming out of Turkmenistan. According to a number of media reports, Uzbekistan not only shut down its southern border, akin to similar reactions at the time of the Kyrgyz revolution, but it also imposed a news blackout on the death for several hours. Karimov soon decided to offer his condolences, but it is likely that he was more concerned that he now sticks out severely as the last remaining Soviet era leader to remain standing. Whatever, the outcome of Turkmen transition, good or bad, Karimov will certainly be disconcerted by yet more evidence that the sacred cow of leadership change is not alien to the region.

This is a translation of the article that Inga posted on Russian neweurasia.

Do you think that it is easy to be a woman in Kyrgyzstan? Apparently it is not. ‘An island of democracy’ also has certain problems when it comes to gender equity. As it was discovered during the special campaign ‘Against gender violence’ every second woman in Kyrgyzstan faces domestic violence on almost a daily basis. Comparing to men women are more affected by unemployment. Women’s salaries account to only 70% of what men generally earn.

Kyrgyz employers don’t support the idea of promoting women on their workplaces. In parliament there are no women-representatives. In the government only 20% of stuff is women. There is only one woman who managed to make it to the ministerial position on the ladder.

Should we than give up thinking about gender equity?Anara Niyazova is a presidential representative in parliament. She deals with the issues of gender equity and she doesn’t seem to be extremely happy with the current situation. She comments:

‘Women are almost non-existing when it comes to their representation in decision making. To balance the situation we need to introduce quota. I think this step should be made and men shouldn’t be fearful when it comes to quota ’

But men are fearful. How else can we explain the fact that exactly in the middle of campaigning for gender equity Kyrgyz parliament failed to pass a legislation aimed at counter balancing patriarchate in official bodies. If those amendments were passed we could faced expected yet another small revolution. Women’s revolution this time as suggested amendments were about introducing quota so that to ensure 30% of women’s representation in parliament and government.

‘MPs probably decided that there was no chance to find so many smart women take those positions and that’s why they decided against passing that draft. Men politicians are generally very suspicious when it somes to women’,- one of MP’s advisors told us with a laughter.

After this discussion I realized that women in Kyrgyzstan hardly have many chances to interfere with traditionally male decision making. But the problem is not only in not allowing women into politics. It is deeper and more complex. The problem is that the society that happened to be working in accordance with male rules is only ready to embrace women who comply with traditional stereotypes. I talked to several men about their opinions and I was not extremely encouraged, to tell you the truth.

Jakshilyk 50 : ‘She first has to bring up 3-4 sons and only than think about doing carrier. If she is still capable to do so. ’
Sergey (father of two): “I think women should stay at home and take care of kids. Why do they need this quota?”
Anonymous (state servant): “I’m still not sure how we are supposed to deal with this gender imbalance. On the one hand, it seems that something should be done. On the other, if everyone is pretty comfortable now, why should we change the rules of this game? ”

Toktokan Boronbaeva used to be a member of parliament. Now she is a chair of the presidential committee on gender equity. She mentions that she used to suffer some severe gender discrimination. She recalls :

“We once had an argument with one of my male colleagues about my legislative initiative. He was screaming at me: “If the draft is not passed you’ll be deserving nothing more but sitting and home and wearing a head scarf.”

Though, during the current campaign on the promotion of gender equity it turned out that there are still spheres of public activity and bodies where women tend to prevail. It was discovered that women are extremely successful in shadow business and … in the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Though, it should be emphasized in both spheres women can hardly catch up with their male colleagues when it comes to their salaries and promotions.

“You can have 2 Masters’, know several languages and be extremely hard working. Though, it still will not guarantee that you get equal promotions with men. According to our stats women get leadership positions much later, ”- says an expert of the Agency of Social Technologies Zulfia Kochorbaeva.

As most Central Asia watchers will already have learnt, President Saparmurat Niyazov, father of all the Turkmens, Turkmenbashi, has died at the age of 66. And already theories among opposition groups are abounding about how long he has actually been dead. Retrospectively, it was clear that someone in Ashgabat had been panicking hours before the almost certainly false date of death was announced.
One sign of the panic would have been the farcically inappropriate arrest of environmental activist Andrei Zatoka, as reported by the Associated Press:

Turkmen environmental activist, Andrei Zatoka, was detained on Sunday by authorities for unknown reasons, rights groups said Wednesday, expressing concern that he might be subjected to torture or other ill treatment.

As it happened, he was preparing to fly to Ashgabat and then on to Moscow. It is presumable that there could have been fears that a politically active citizen making a trip outside the country might take some undesired news with him.
And so for all the talk of imminent power struggles and the end of the Turkmenbashi reign, it is immediately obvious that things will remain as they have been for the foreseeable future. The population will not cheer the passing of a despot, but they may come to mourn the passing of a deeply compromised stability.
The colour reports coming from Ashgabat, which will understandably go through some hours and days of great anxiety, have mostly been courtesy of Agence France Presse, who is said to have a dependable stringer in the country. Among the largely stunned testimony gathered from the citizenry of Ashgbat was Murad, a 27-year old businessman:

“I felt awful when I heard on the television. We have suffered a loss. We feel we ourselves have been orphaned,” he said, alluding to Niyazov becoming a orphan in early childhood — much mythologised in his poetic texts.

But one of the earliest commentator to set off the blocks were Kazakh parliamentarians, who urged, as have so many across the world, urged Turkmenistan to seek the path of stability. As Serik Abdrakhmanov, chairman of the committee on international affairs, defence and security in the Kazakh Majlis said:

“This is perhaps the time to wish our brother nation of Turkmenistan peace and tranquillity, and let those that yesterday grovelled before the Rukhnama think more about the people and help them find a stable and peaceful path with the help of the country’s natural wealth.”

And to best implement this path to a smooth future would be to effect a constitutionally respectful and legal transition; something that has already been marred by the arbitrary and immediate ascendancy of Deputy Prime Minister Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 49. As Reuters notes:

“Under the constitution, Parliament head Ovezgeldy Atayev should have automatically become acting head of state. But, in a sign of political tensions, justice officials immediately opened a criminal probe into his activities, blocking his appointment.”

Although Berdymukhammedov may best be remembered as the minister of health given a customary public dressing down by Niyazov in April 2004 and fined three months wages for failing to resolve the question of wage arrears in the nation’s health service, he is also believed to be a confidante of the highly influential head of the presidential guard, Akmurad Rejepov. This alliance may prove crucial and it is noteworthy that in addition to the having subverted constitutional protocol in naming Berdymukhammedov the interim leader, he was also appointed chairman of the commission overseeing the funeral, which is set to take place on Dec. 26.
Curiously, for people hungry for some background information on Berdymukhammedov’s biography, Reuters provided some interesting, if not intriguing details. In 2001 he assumed the post of deputy Prime Minister, nominally the second most important role in the country, bearing in mind that Niyazov was the Prime Minister as well as the president of his country. He was born in 1957 in a yet unidentified village in Soviet Turkmenistan and pursued a successful and prestigious academic career. As Reuters observes, ” he followed a career in dentistry both as a practitioner and an academic,” a highly exotic and suggestive detail. In 1997, he was named Minister of Health and Medical Industry, as indicated earlier.
Meanwhile, some eyebrows were raised at the recent Nov. 28 CIS meeting in Minsk, where Turkmenistan was the attending country not to send a head of state. Instead, Berdymukhammedov officiated in the role, fulfilling the role with eerie prescience, although he has no connections to the foreign ministry, to which this competence would be more naturally suited.
But surely the most sensational claim to have emerged on this individual to date is the allegation doing the rounds is that Berdymukhammedov is none other than Niyazov’s bastard son. In televised images broadcast on Russian television on the evening of the leader’s declared death, a solitary and ashen-faced Berdymukhammedov spoke in front of a portrait of strikingly similar-looking Niyazov. Such allegations have been heard on Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday, but they have previously also appeared in Turkmenskaya Iskra and other opposition websites. This would also account, according to this theory, for Berdymukhammedov’s apparent ability to elude the grisly sentence that has befallen other high-placed figures in Niyazov’s inner circle.
Niyazov’s real family, consisting of an estranged wife and two children, a daughter and a son, are also being spoken of in the maelstrom that may come in the wake of his death.
Interestingly although it is his playboy son, about whom there are varying theories, that most is spoken about, his daughter Irina Niyazova cropped up in a market report compiled on Tuesday by the Moscow branch of Deutsche Bank:

“Niyazov’s death is likely to result in political instability and infighting between various clans. One group is centered on Niyazov’s daughter who, it is thought, oversees the personal finances of the Niyazov family.”

This theory has interesting pedigree and it is notable that only Deutsche Bank should have raised it, bearing in mind that the Global Witness report in 2006 on Niyazov’s gas-related corruption claimed that the president had as much as $2 billion under his own personal control in an account with the very same German lender. The money is sourced from Turkmen gas transactions, and if the speculation were true than this would mean a lump sum of money almost certainly lost to the country.
Other accounts, however, have it that Irina Niyazova lives in France with a Russian former general, where she runs her own bank. In this version of events, she spurned her father after he betrayed her mother with other women; a favour he returned by not using the services of her bank.
Murad Niyazov, as varying speculation has it, is also a serial womaniser, a gambler that once lost $12 million dollars on one night of playing the tables in Madrid in 1997, a former cigarette smuggler, and a bagman for his father’s illicit gas-related dealings. At any rate, it is all high rumour at this stage, although the likelihood of either of these candidates making even minimal impact on the Turkmen political scene seems vastly implausible.

Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey that explores what Central Eurasia might look like fifteen years from now.

I will be 40 in 2021 – that is the first scary thought crossing my mind writing this. Central Asia will no doubt face more challenges of greater import than the past fifteen years. All scare-mongering aside though, a point in time fifteen years in the future gives ample room for wild speculation. With that in mind, I hereby invite all participants of this survey for a drink some days before Christmas 2021 – drinks are free for whoever came closest to the future reality.

To get some sort of idea of what lies ahead, a look back in time bestows some of the scale future developments might entail (as we did in the last survey). In 1991, Central Asia was newly independent. A friend of mine is writing his Master’s dissertation on the predictive analyses written back then, which were not unlike what I am writing here (which will probably prove equally misguided).

‘Which way forward for Central Asia – Where will it stand in 2006?’. Needless to say, the bulk of regional forecasts proved at least partly obsolete – the fault lines and crises that actually evolved were hardly of the variety observers had predicted.
Read the full story »

It is not that we didn’t expect another big shake in the country. But we didn’t expect it so soon. The news about the resignation of the Kyrgyz government followed shortly after the newly amended Constitution was adopted amidst street rallies in Bishkek last month.

It was predictable that certain tensions between the government and the parliament would appear but hardly anyone expected the government to make such a radical step. According to the Prime Minister Felix Kulov the decision to resign was made after it became clear that the two branches of power would not be able to coexist. “They keep sabotaging our work,”- emphasized Kulov explaining the decision. He also pointed out at the fact that the president should not be surprised by the resignation. “I several times told about my position to the president,”-he said.

The body that was really caught off guard by the resignation of the Cabinet was Kyrgyz parliament. It was even funny to observe scared MPs insisting that the president shouldn’t accept the resignation. In the light of the ongoing confrontation of the parliament and the government this reaction was rather strange. Not to anyone, though, knowing the details of the new Constitution. If you read this original document carefully you may notice that in the Chapter 71 it is stated that the government of the country is to be formed by the party that has a majority in parliament. One, who is familiar with the composition of today’s parliament in Kyrgystan, can easily point out at the fact that there is no such a thing as a winning majority in Jogorku Kenesh due to the fact that most of MPs were elected on the basis of single member constituencies.

Following simple logic one can suggest that since the parliament is not capable of appointing a Cabinet of Ministers due to its structural discrepancy, something should be done about such parliament. The most obvious choice in order to avoid the crisis of governance in this case is to dissolve the parliament, to stage new elections and to start everything from the scratch.

Logic, though, is not something our deputies are good at. For the people who were hoping to retain their parliamentarian mandates till 2010 the resignation of the government was a stab in the back. During an emergency session that the president and the prime minister had after the announcement MPs were theorizing about causes and consequences of the government resignation.

“They are conspiring against us and I still don’t know what exactly it is that they want to accomplish”,- said of the main cheer leaders of the protests and an ardent proponent of constitutional changed Omurbek Tekebaev. His friend in need Azimbek Beknazarov emphasized that the resignation of the government should not affect the parliament at all. But it was obviously more of wishful thinking of Beknazarov.

Kyrgyz deputies didn’t expect that the day may come when it will be necessary to be held responsible for enthusiastic ideas to bring down the old order and to start everything from scratch. The plan of starting the parliament from scratch was not included in the plan of reorganizing life in the country.