Oct. 4 parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan caused indignation among the population of the country. As a result of popular discontent with the past elections, mass protests began in Bishkek, followed by riots that turned into the third revolution for Kyrgyzstan. Against this background, on Oct. 6 the Central Elections Commission of the republic recognized the results of elections invalid. And already on Oct. 21 meeting of CEC a unanimous decision was made according to which repeated elections to the Jogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz Parliament) will be held on Dec. 20.
According to CEC representatives, amendments to some legislative acts have already been prepared and have been approved by the Commission.
Now almost the entire population of Kyrgyzstan actively calls for transparent elections, and that "old parties" with "old politicians" do not take part in them. According to Kyrgyz political scientists, not only strong, young, but also untainted faces should go to the elections. And to do so, it is necessary to think about the system of election of candidates, so that the parties have already selected candidates for the elections. In other words - the primaries, which are now actively used in Russia and neighboring Kazakhstan, should help Kyrgyzstan to renew parties and strengthen them.
In the opinion of political scientist Denis Berdakov, political events in Kyrgyzstan once again showed that "we lack one or more longstanding and organizationally powerful political parties, which could unite all the people with their ideas, actions and solutions to urgent problems of the population".
According to him, there are hundreds of legally registered parties in Kyrgyzstan, dozens of active parties, but each party is built not for strategies and programs, but for influential figures.
As Berdakov noticed, people have long since yearned for stability. "Yes, people have inherent stability. And citizens want kindergartens to work, to have steady job, and in politics there are parties that would be responsible for their personnel, programs, appointments of two, five, and ten years ago. Because economic development is the years of hard work of several governments, building value chains and clusters in the world, these are decades of well-coordinated work of elites and people. And this requires one or two parties, which will form the political field. Of course, this does not negate the existence of a dozen weaker parties, which should be richly represented in all elected positions, but their task is to be the "watchdogs" of democracy, helping the largest players not to stumble, making sure that political competition is the main tool to combat corruption and the lawlessness of the judicial and law enforcement systems," said the political scientist.
Berdakov points to the need to enlarge Kyrgyz parties. "Still, it was the 7% threshold (although 5% may be appropriate) that created the parties in our country at least as a phenomenon of situational consolidation of leaders from all regions," he said.
The political scientist also believes that wild political competition is a good way not to go into a rigid totalitarian and even dictatorial regime. Although it is only through a rather harsh dictate of law and political authoritarianism, he says, all Southeast Asian tigers have managed to achieve sufficient economic growth to restart civil society.
"For there is no Western-type civil society without rich and educated owners. But it's time for us to think about enlargement of parties, turning them into powerful economic centers of thought, personnel schools, social elevators for youth," Berdakov added.
As an example, the political scientist points to the experience of Kazakhstan, which, he said, is very close to us culturally.
"Nur Otan Party has created public receptions in all regions, where all Kazakhstanis apply, including non-partisan ones. In Kazakhstan, this party solves specific problems of specific people. The party has repeatedly helped Kazakhstanis in emergency situations", he shares, adding that this experience should be watched, studied, copied and creatively processed somewhere.
According to Berdakov, Kazakhstan's Nur Otan has extensive experience in creating effective election programs, which have been implemented and provided a foundation for the development of the country for many years.
It is also important for Kyrgyzstan to understand that the Kazakh party system works largely because of the political will of their elites and availability of financial resources. This, he says, must be taken into account.
For his part, Head of the Kyrgyz Council on Foreign Relations and Security Edil Osmonbetov believes that today's elections are a choice of future strategic development of the country for the coming years. "Parties that may enter parliament must have a very high quality composition on party lists to participate in the elections," he said.
According to the political scientist, in the new political world, which is being formed today, it is very important to have a sufficiently democratic procedure for selecting people from parties that enjoy popularity and authority in society. The system or procedure of primaries helps this selection.
The head of the Kyrgyz Council points out that today in the world there is a very low authority of parties among the population and weak quality of candidates on party lists, but it is necessary to start with something.
"In this respect, the experience of Nur Otan party holding primaries in Kazakhstan is interesting. It is necessary to find out the reasons why the party took this procedure: the desire to democratize the party, reduce the influence of party bureaucracy and increase the influence of voters on the political process, especially when there is a danger of joining the party and state bureaucracy,” Osmonbetov said.
According to his observations, party activists are unable to change and adapt to new political conditions for objective reasons, so they require constant updating. Although this goal, in Osmonbetov's opinion, is more important for the opposition than for the authorities, which are much less dependent on the most active members of a party.
Edil Osmonbetov emphasizes that many modern parties have frozen in their development or have completely exhausted themselves, neither rebranding nor other cosmetic changes help.
The primaries, according to the head of the Kyrgyz Council, will provide an opportunity to attract the support of the party electorate and to participate in the activities of executive authorities in case of victory in the relevant elections. The primaries also help mobilize people to participate in another political event.
"Debates in the primaries can stimulate the growth of competition and democracy on various development issues in society. A stable and ideological layer will emerge within the Nur Otan Party in the future. The primaries serve as a tool to crystallize the Nur Otan party environment and identify the most energetic, charismatic leaders," the political scientist believes.
He also points to the fact that the primaries say a lot about the political situation in the country and the party system, which should correspond to modern global political processes.
Proceeding from the above, perhaps, Kyrgyzstan should think about holding preliminary elections of party candidates before the elections to the Jogorku Kenesh. And this, in turn, will promote improvement of quality of structure of parties and updating of parties by people having authority in a society that is demanded by people of the country now.
Kabar News Agency
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