Central Asia’s time of choice

Youthful population: Uzbek women at a butcher's shop, Tashkent

Véronique Durruty · Gamma-Rapho · Getty

Authoritarian regimes don't like handovers of power, especially if their leaders die or are forced to step down because of old age. Most Central Asian countries, with political institutions that are fragileorconsidered by their peoples to lack legitimacy, have faced this delicate situation in recent years. Many of the region's leaders had been general secretary of the national communist party, became the first president after independence in 1991, and had remained in office ever since. Turkmenistan's Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006 and Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov in 2016, while Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down last year at the age of 78; Tajikistan's Emomali Rahmon, 67, is thinking about his succession after 28 years in office.

Kyrgyzstan may be an exception: governments change through a combination of democratic elections and popular revolutions orchestrated by elites who are divided into factions based on their economic interests and clan loyalties (north vs south); two governments have been overthrown, in 2005 and 2010. The present regime, led by Sooronbay Jeenbekov, elected in 2017, is far from a model of pluralism but is more democratic than its neighbours, with an opposition that is less bullied, and a civil society that is still active.

In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, an emerging civil society demands the authorities impose greater transparency and accountability on the elite, and take better account of peoples’ needs

Elsewhere, different models of succession have been tried since the mid-2000s. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the 'fathers of the nation' died without naming an heir, but their successors, former health minister Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and ex-prime minister Shavkat Mirzyoyev, already members of the inner circle, were able to secure their positions, quietly removing troublesome rivals. Tajikistan's Rahmon hopes to hand over to his son Rustam, who is currently mayor of Dushanbe, just as (…)

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Source: mondediplo.com