Kyrgyz Leader Eyeing A Second Term With The Political Landscape Transformed

To anyone watching Kyrgyzstan these last three years, the revelation that President Sadyr Japarov intends to run for a second presidential term will not be surprising.

More striking for most observers is the extent to which he and his ally -- national-security chief Kamchybek Tashiev -- have managed to tame the country’s once chaotic political landscape without, so far, coming unstuck in the process.

The deputy chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Edil Baisalov, said on January 29 that “the people themselves will not allow” the 55-year-old Japarov to quit the presidency after just one term.

“Our president will participate in the next elections,” Baisalov said in response to a question on Ekspertter Taldait (Expert Analysis), a talk show produced by RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service.

“The constitution allows it, so he won't leave halfway. The people themselves will not allow it. The people have hope and will witness great achievements in the next three years,” Baisalov said.

Baisalov’s words were quickly confirmed by Japarov’s official spokesman, who said the Kyrgyz leader will take part in the next presidential election, which would officially be held in 2026.

Japarov’s de facto co-ruler, Tashiev, gave his endorsement to the idea of a second Japarov term in December, quieting speculation that he was seeking the job for himself.

The president's long-time ally moreover asserted that the head of state was in his rights to serve out a six-year term, because he was elected in January 2021 under the old constitution. That constitution did not allow presidents to seek reelection. But since the new constitution passed just months after that vote does permit two-term presidencies, Japarov will still be able to run for a second, five-year stint under the new constitution in 2027, Tashiev explained on Facebook.

After clarifying this curious legality, Tashiev then added: “I believe that in eight years time another person will appear in the country, who will root for the people, just like Sadyr Japarov.”

This all seems to point to a long-term plan for a regime in a country where politics has often been a short-term affair, with three presidents forced from office during three decades of independence.

Then again, Kyrgyzstan is looking rather different these days.

Gone, seemingly, are the notorious backroom powerbrokers who seemed to enjoy the same power and privileges as presidents.

Also gone is the carousel of politicians and business magnates who bounced between the government and the opposition and who could always be relied upon to throw their hats into the ring at election time.

Hushed, if not silenced, is Kyrgyzstan's once noisy civil society, amid a steady stream of imprisonments that have taken in activists and journalists as well as political opponents.

“In the intermediate period, the current leadership seems to be in a better position to centralize power than previous leaders,” said Johan Engvall, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. “But if Kyrgyzstan’s history teaches us anything, it is that things can change quickly if the government goes too far."

Capturing 'Income Streams'

For the decade prior to Japarov's and Tashiev’s arrival in power, Kyrgyzstan operated under a constitution that had been specifically designed to reign in the ability of presidents to concentrate power in their hands.

It didn’t always work out like that, of course, but Almazbek Atambaev, the first popularly elected president under that older version of the basic law, at least accepted that he could not run again.

The logic for passing the country's 2010 constitution was the behavior of the country’s first two presidents, Askar Akaev and Kurmanbek Bakiev, who were overthrown in revolutions as they took steps to consolidate and expand their power, with notable help from family members.

This political turbulence marked an obvious difference with neighbors like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, where regimes have been able to see off challenges.

According to Engvall, who authored a book on Kyrgyzstan titled The State As Investment Market, the difference partly lies in Kyrgyzstan’s style of political economy.

“Political power and economic wealth are intimately connected in Kyrgyzstan, but the country’s economic resources have been relatively dispersed among various businessmen and parliamentarians, with presidents unable to fully centralize control over the most lucrative income streams,” Engvall told RFE/RL in e-mailed comments.

For the moment, it seems that Japarov and Tashiev are learning from the mistakes of authoritarian Bakiev, under whose reign both men served as top officials.

Capturing “income streams” emerged as an early priority as government forces seized control over the then-foreign-run Kumtor gold mine in 2021, with Canadian company Centerra Gold later settling with the government out of court.

The move, taking place in the duo’s first full year after taking power, boosted government revenues, enabling hikes in state salaries that have helped to keep their approval ratings high -- always a problem for the notoriously venal Bakievs.

At the same time as the mine takeover, authorities began detaining high-profile politicians in a criminal investigation related to historic corruption at Kumtor. They were released, but not without first coughing up considerable sums of money.

Former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov (left) and Kamchybek Tashiev (file photo)

Former Prime Minister and one-time presidential candidate Omurbek Babanov, for instance, gave 1 billion soms (more than $11 million) in assistance to the state, Tashiev said.

Lesser cash cows have also been expropriated.

Last year, authorities announced the nationalization of the country’s largest vodka producer, Ayu. The company’s main beneficiary, reportedly in ill health and living abroad, had in the past helped finance a party that competed in parliamentary elections in 2015 and 2020.

And Then There Were Two

But what of the two men who, for many Kyrgyz, served as embodiments of a corrupt and broken system, even as governments came and went?

Sources who spoke to RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service and other media outlets across multiple investigations into smuggling and money laundering portrayed crime kingpin Kamchybek Kolbaev and former customs official Raimbek Matraimov as actors in an underground empire worth billions of dollars.

Former Kyrgyz customs official Raimbek Matraimov (file photo)

Both men were slapped with sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department, which described Kolbaev as “a crowned thief-in-law” involved in transnational drug and human trafficking and Matraimov as someone who made “hundreds of millions of dollars” as a result of his involvement in a corrupt customs scheme. "Thief-in-law" is the highest title in the criminal hierarchy traditionally given to kingpins among criminal groups in former Soviet republics.

Yet in Kyrgyzstan, Kolbaev and Matraimov both enjoyed impunity, a fact underscored by the highly symbolic stints that both men spent in jail at the beginning of Japarov’s time in office before walking free and seemingly returning to lives of power.

Not any more, though.

In October, Kolbaev was gunned down by officers of Tashiev’s State Committee for National Security in a dramatic daytime raid on a restaurant in central Bishkek that marked the beginning of a nationwide operation targeting alleged gangsters.

Many of these reputed criminals have since issued video confessions disavowing their lives of crime.

For a long time, Japarov said very little about the killing of Kolbaev, who hailed from his native Issyk-Kul Province.

But on January 25, Japarov used an interview with the state information agency to distance himself from long-standing allegations that Kolbaev had assisted his rise to power during unrest that broke out over parliamentary elections at a time when Japarov was an opposition figure still serving a prison sentence.

As for Matraimov, he is now officially the subject of an arrest warrant, although his whereabouts are unknown.

Speaking in the former official’s home region of Osh, Tashiev said on January 27 that authorities had begun confiscating all of Matraimov's properties and joked that if the former powerbroker ever wanted to live in Kyrgyzstan in the future, he would have to drive around in a humble Chevrolet Matiz.

Aijan Sharshenova, an independent political scientist, told RFE/RL that the Kyrgyz public would most likely welcome the pair’s downfall, even if Kolbaev had been somewhat successful in creating “the image of a strong man with a romanticized criminal code of honor.”

But even without the powerbrokers, Kyrgyzstan’s new “decisively authoritarian” political system remains “unstructured,” with few signs of institutional development, Sharshenova argued.

“The main issue with the current operation of all branches of state power is that they are personality-oriented and seem to revolve around the two leaders -- President Japarov and the head of security services Tashiev,” Sharshenova told RFE/RL.