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It's been 4 months since political sinkhole opened up in Kyrgyzstan after parliamentary elections, and while they've fixed up the White House (and torn down the fence), what's going on inside?
There's a new PM: Ulukbek Maripov, started out in Min of Finance and was last working in the Accounts Chamber. He was nominated for PM by Respublika-Ata Jurt, but his own party loyalties (if you believe him) don't exist https://vesti.kg/politika/item/81543-ulugbek-maripov-dvadtsat-let-ya-ne-byl-ni-v-odnoj-partii-u-menya-net-politicheskikh-ambitsij.html
He seems to earnestly want to do a good job, and that one of his first acts in office was to fire his brother, who was akim of Nookat district in Osh oblast, to avoid a conflict of interest seems noble enough. Good news right? Not for long... https://24.kg/english/182362_Ulukbek_Maripov_fires_his_brother_from_post_of_head_of_Nookat_district/
...because President Sadyr Japarov has already announced that the position of PM is going to be abolished in 6 months (albeit on Telegram, so who knows how serious it reflects the timeline for a new system of government) https://kloop.kg/blog/2021/02/04/sadyr-zhaparov-zayavil-chto-v-kyrgyzstane-uprazdnyat-dolzhnost-premer-ministra/
But KG had PMs under presidential systems before, so (the neutral take) this is just a strategy of streamlining government or (the cyncial take) reflects a careful effort to wipe out alternate/potentially competing loci of authority across the government https://eurasianet.org/kyrgyzstan-parliament-approves-new-streamlined-government
Evidence for the former: the number of executive bodies + ministries went from 48 to 16 with the swish of a pen, but Japarov has his sights on reducing even further: he cites the potential for corruption, but also that Kyrgyzstan is just too poor to have this many ministries
Before After
(You don't have to read Kyrgyz to get the gist that they chopped up the bureaucracy)
https://www.facebook.com/japarov.sadyr/posts/1782550011919920
(You don't have to read Kyrgyz to get the gist that they chopped up the bureaucracy)
https://www.facebook.com/japarov.sadyr/posts/1782550011919920
Some are worried about the prudence of getting rid of the Ministry of Ecology and the Ministry of Tourism (tourism -- largely ecotourism -- was 5% of Kyrgyzstan's pre-pandemic GDP)
There's some continuity between the team of ministers who've been running the country for the past 4 months (ie Ruslan Kazakbaev in Foreign Affairs), but also a lot of turnover (ie Tilek Toktogaziev, young opp. figure who was head of Ministry of Agriculture)
Maybe not so much of a surprise that Toktogaziev was not kept on in government, given how outspoken he was about the dangers of constitutional reform that puts more power in the hands of the president https://kloop.kg/blog/2020/11/18/nam-ne-nuzhna-diktatura-glava-minselhoza-tilek-toktogaziev-protiv-proekta-novoj-konstitutsii/
And when will we know more about how the new constitution will bound the authority of the president? April 11 has been thrown out as a date for a second referendum, in which citizens can vote to accept or a reject a new constitution https://rus.azattyk.org/a/referendum-po-izmeneniyu-konstitutsii-predvaritelno-proydet-v-odin-den-s-vyborami-v-mestnye-keneshi/31051766.html
Although Constitutional Council has touted its transparency and commitment to democracy in writing a new constitution, little is known about what the document will say. Even with a new government in place, the situation is still largely TBD https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/lack-of-transparency-marks-kyrgyzstans-constitutional-reform-quest/
