After Kyrgyzstan, who’s up next for revolution in former Soviet republics?

AP Worldstream
Mar 25, 2005

HENRY MEYER – Who’s next? That’s the question strongmen in former
Soviet lands are asking themselves nervously after Kyrgyzstan became
the third country in the region to be swept by revolution.

In neighboring countries in Central Asia, opposition politicians
sense it’s their turn to re-enact the drama of 1989, when democracy
swept much of Eastern Europe as the Soviet empire started to crumble.

Kazakhstan, a vast, energy-rich nation where Western oil firms have
invested billions of dollars, is seen by many analysts as the next
target for a popular uprising.

Possible ramifications abound: in addition to oil _ also a factor
in Azerbaijan _ the region has Islamic fundamentalist movements
suspected of links to terrorism, an active drug trade, U.S. and
Russian military bases, strategic positioning on China’s doorstep,
and no firm guarantees that any new leaders would be more democratic
than the current crop.

Russia has looked on with anxiety at the upheaval in its former
Soviet backyard, as allies in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have
been toppled in succession and without regard to its wishes. It sees
the trend as a deep strategic threat to its role as the dominant
regional power.

But the wind of freedom blowing across the former Soviet Union looks
like it could finally bring countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus
into the democratic fold, more than 15 years after the collapse of
the Berlin Wall.

Yevgeny Volk, Moscow director of the conservative Washington-based
Heritage Foundation think-tank, says a momentous process is
unfolding. “These countries are facing a radical change of power,
which did not happen in the early 1990s,” he said.

“Unlike the Baltic States, which quickly adopted a market economy,
democratic society and rule of law, and Russia to a much lesser extent,
in Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Communist-era leaders stayed
in power, which bred corruption and authoritarianism. … But now
the time is ripe for revolutions.”

The United States encouraged the Georgian and Ukrainian pro-Western
reformers now in charge. In Central Asia, seen as a vital source of
energy and a bulwark against Islamic radicalism, it favors stability
but is tentatively distancing itself from corrupt regimes that are
fanning religious extremism.

In Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, a former Communist boss
who has been in power since 1989, will be seeking another seven-year
term next year.

He contemptuously blamed Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev on Friday for
his “weakness” in allowing “rioters and thugs” to oust him.

But despite a crackdown on independent media and the opposition,
the 64-year-old Nazarbayev is in trouble because of alleged nepotism
amid widespread poverty and his opponents’ growing popularity.

On Sunday, the long fractured opposition chose as its single candidate
for the 2006 presidential vote Zharmakhan Tuyakbai_ a former top
Nazarbayev ally who resigned last year as parliament speaker and head
of the presidential party.

“In Kazakhstan, if the government tries to falsify the election
results, the same scenario as in Kyrgyzstan cannot be ruled out,”
said Moscow-based analyst Andrei Piontkovsky.

In Uzbekistan, where thousands of political prisoners languish in
jails, hardline President Islam Karimov’s repressive rule with an
omnipresent secret police is seen as sufficient _ for now _ to keep
the lid on any unrest.

But observers worry that after Kyrgyzstan, which saw mass looting
by mobs of poor people in a revolution far less peaceful than in
either Ukraine or Georgia, Islamic radicals could launch an attempt
to unseat Karimov.

The United States maintains military bases in both Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan, while Russia has an air base in Kyrgyzstan.

Outside Central Asia, the likeliest candidate for revolution is seen
as Armenia, a key Russian ally on Russia’s southern flank in the
unstable Caucasus region.

President Robert Kocharian, whose contested re-election to a second
term in 2003 sparked opposition protests, faces fresh elections for
parliament and the presidency in 2007.

Critics say he has violently cracked down on dissent, allowed
corruption to flourish and done little to improve the lot of
impoverished Armenia’s 3.3 million people.

In neighboring Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev in 2003 succeeded his late
father, Geidar Aliev, the longtime ruler in the oil-rich Caspian state,
marking the first political dynasty in a former Soviet republic.

The country will hold parliamentary elections in November this year,
which the opposition sees as its best opportunity for change, but
it may have a harder time because poverty is not as widespread as
in Armenia.

“Who’s next?” Russia’s liberal Noviye Izvestia daily asked on its
front page Friday. “The Kyrgyz precedent cannot fail to worry the
leaders of other countries, especially those countries where in the
near future parliamentary and presidential elections will be held.”

The popular Moscow daily Moskovskiye Komsomolets called on Russia to
take action to stop revolution from spreading any further _ or risk
losing all clout in the former Soviet Union.

“If Russia doesn’t at last break its silence it will be too late to
do anything. This will not end with Kyrgyzstan,” it said.

In a sign Moscow has learned some lessons from its humiliating failure
to impose its candidate in last year’s disputed presidential elections
in Ukraine, it recently has had contacts with the Kyrgyz opposition.

Kremlin-connected analyst Sergei Markov said there were “very serious
fears” that Moscow could lose all influence in the former Soviet
empire and that a discussion was currently taking place on whether
to abandon all attempts at regional leadership.