In terms of political evolution, Tajikistan is at least a decade behind Kyrgyzstan. It presents an interesting comparison, as it suffered both a past civil war (which was always highly unlikely in Kyrgyzstan, but North-South tensions are nevertheless present) and currently languishes under an increasingly authoritarian government (particularly after Kyrgyzstan’s March uprisings, which people describe here as the ‘occasional revolution’ - in other words, that it was an accident that should not have happened; in any event, the Tajik government is taking no chances). Cultural factors that make difficult the introduction of Western democratic principles such as rule of law, the social contract and government representation and accountability are stronger here. Beyond the ‘Soviet mentality’, there is even stronger pastoralism, created by larger mountain barriers (to the extreme that people in neighboring valleys can barely understand each other), greater family connections (like the Eskimos’ myriad words for snow, Tajiks have words that explicitly lay out the specific connection between people [i.e. my mother’s brother’s son, etc.]), and a greater acceptance of and tolerance for corruption.

The hope among many international organizations is to create a new generation of Tajiks open to cosmopolitan ideas and enable them to become leaders for their own people (this is also a strategy for Kyrgyzstan, but there is more hope there for the country’s present as well as its future). Unfortunately, the fall of the Soviet Union meant the end of a well-funded system of education - the generation that is supposed to lead the country has come from crumbling schools and abysmal classrooms; although they are now no longer lectured at great length on mundane topics (as during Soviet times), in all likelihood, they are not getting much of anything at all. With corrution more entrenched in the education system now than ever before (paying for entrance to school, paying for grades, paying for the diploma, etc.), it is unlikely that even basic knowledge (to say nothing of critical and creative thinking, major deficiencies in every generation in Tajikistan) such as literacy or arithmetic will be taught and the new generation will be more unprepared than ever to be the leaders in business and politics that the country so desperately needs.

Can international organizations save Tajikistan? The key, in my perception, lies in the government, a corrupt, nepotistic, bureaucratic kleptocracy bent on maintaining control and keeping the population in submission at all costs, buying into the concept that an empowered, educated populace will be better in the long run than the current situation, even if it means the end of the cushy lifestyles of virtually everyone in power currently (they can always escape to Russia a la Akaev…). Change is happening, mainly through NGO’s, but the pace is painfully glacial and by the time the government finally wakes up, is may be too late.

Only on Xinhua, the Chinese news site. It looks like, contrary to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the United States’ military presence in Central Asia (at least Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) will continue. This will likely have the effect of maintaing the size of the embassies in both countries, meaning that they will continue to have staff specifically for issues of democracy. Will the new Great Game continue? Much depends on how the United States deals with the unresolved issue of Uzbekistan’s human rights record - which faces major tests in the form of the trial of Internews employees and the future of the Uzbek refugees from Andijan currently in Kyrgyzstan.

A lot of research here in Dushanbe - Tajikistan is a fascinating case study in the immense and numerous challenges facing international aid and development programs. Much of the difficulties in Kyrgyzstan are an even larger influence here: the cultural divide between locals and Westerners is larger, the economic situation more desperate, the government more authoritarian than Akayev at his worst, and on top of a Soviet legacy (or ‘mentality’), there is the immense baggage of the Civil War. More to come soon.

One of the things many people have echoed here and in Bishkek is the ascendence of Russian influence in Central Asia. The five republics still look to Russia for their IR cues, and in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan at least (probably in Kazakhstan and who knows about Turkmenistan) the March events in Bishkek (people here are hesitant to call it a Revolution) scared governments into cracking down. The Internews trial will be a good test case, as Karimov sets the standard for Central Asian authoritarianism. It’s unclear how Bakiev will act - it seems like he is trying to get the get the best of both worlds - that is, the first and second worlds. Will the pressure signal a new Great Game? It seems that there will definitely be implications for and modern Great Power relations. What impact will this have on the progress of democracy? Certainly the Russian-led effort to curtail foreign funding for NGO’s will create problems for American programs - as a recent US House of Representatives hearing noted, “progress continues to be measured largely in terms of civil society development”, and a USAID page noted that “the development of a vibrant civil society is a basic underpinning to democratization”. Thus, even if Russia (or China or Uzbekistan) fails in pushing the United States out of Central Asia, it seems like their means will have as much an effect on the democratic prospects in the republics as their ends. However, it seems like the success of authoritarianism is becoming more likely, particularly if the United States backs down from the recent challenge. We’ll see if Rumsfeld accomplishes more in his upcoming visit than he did on his last.

The Central Asia Democracy Project is issuing a call for papers on the popularity in Central Asia of Counterstrike. (Note for all retired gamers like me: it’s the Half-Life add-on, not the Command and Conquer sequel, as I had originally thought - the latter would have been really interesting from a historical perspective.) The game must tax the feeble computers at the Internet cafes, about half of which are used by kids playing it. Yet despite what must be incredibly poor ping numbers (do they still use that measurement?) they still play it. Why CounterStrike? Does it reflect some characteristic of the under-15 generation in Central Asia or is it an element of globalization that has reached even the back roads of the Tien Shan mountains? Email me with answers; if there are any logical or interesting explanations, I’ll post them here.

I’ve now arrived in Tajikistan, so expect the focus of this blog to change a bit.

That said, speaking with other people in Bishkek (I’m keeping interviewees anonymous on this blog, but suffice it to say, if Kyrgyzstan had pundits, they would be them), I mentioned my previously outlined observations about the Kyrgyz presidential elections, and they noted that choice was never an expectation for the election - it was basically a referendum on Bakiev’s administration. While referendums have a shady history in Kyrgyzstan (and Central Asia for that matter) - they have been employed to push through all types of nasty ‘reforms’ that consolidate power or expand term limits. However, it seemed that this one might turn out well because it delivered the stability that Kyrgyz citizens valued above all else. It seems that while the March Revolution attracted a great deal of attention from American media and donor organizations, it scared a lot of people here in Kyrgyzstan. People just want to live their own lives without a lot of upheaval. ‘Stability’ has been used by many people for many purposes, but it seems that the main outcome of the elections is that people are currently happy with the system and they have hope for the future, neither of which existed half a year ago.

However, I still believe that raising a little hell once in a while - as long as it is well-focused, reasonably contained and nonviolent, which NGO-organized groups during the March Revolution certainly were - is not a bad thing (it certainly has a good track record in the United States). I think that one of the major obstacles in Kyrgyzstan to creating social elements of a stable democracy (strong ideologically-based parties, objective media, local activism, etc.) is the lack of a notion of citizenship and a social contract - both the ‘by the people, for the people’ notion of statehood and political representation and the sense of using political engagement to express one’s beliefs and better one’s life. How to do this? I have yet to find an answer. Maybe it will be in Tajikistan or, more likely, Mongolia…

Updating from my previous post in which I observed that

people voted for Bakiev just for the sake of voting for him, rather than any specific policies or ideological alignment

I found that this problem was quite widespread. Basically, although the election was relatively clean from a technical standpoint, it was not a great election from the point of view of the political philosophy underpinning the purpose of elections. I tend to view elections from the point of view of the voter, in which the act of voting is like buying something - it is a strategic decision designed to bring benefit to one’s life. The question a voter should ask is ‘which candidate will bring me the most benefit?’ (how ‘benefit’ is defined is entirely subjective and is the reason modern democracies are so pluralistic)

On July 11, I spoke with several people living in the rural area the Chui Valley, east of Bishkek. They said that many voters predicted that Bakiev would win, so they just voted for Bakiev. They said that the debates were weak and that unprofessional (unfortunately, I missed them so I can’t really comment). Although they said that the media did a good job of communicating information, when I asked them to name specific policies, programs or promises of candidates other than Bakiev, they could not. This problem of a lack of voter knowledge of platforms seems to be a persistent trend in looking at the problems of voting. On July 10, I noticed that the poster with statements by all of the candidates that seemed to be part of a package that included posters on how the ink system worked was haphazardly posted in some of the polling stations - in some, it was outside for everyone to read (which nobody I saw did) before voting, but in many others, it was behind the poll workers and thus inaccessible to voters or in another random place that people would not be able to notice before casting their vote.

They said that on several occasions, Bakiev’s operatives called them from government offices to tell them that they must vote for him. Although they saw the election as moving in the right direction, they said that others saw it as simply a ‘change of hats’ - nothing substantive. They said that local election officials were under pressure to make sure that as many people voted as possible because the election would be invalid if turnout was under 50%. People were afraid that something would happen on election day - another person I spoke with said that there were rumors afloat that if under 50% voted, the opposition candidates would unleash a protest in Bishkek similar to March 24 or June 17. Fortunately, election day was peaceful (if a little too peaceful - they said that this time of the year is the prime time for working in the fields and that it was difficult to get people to come into centers to vote). It seems like voting has become acceptible among the general populace - although they know that they are no longer forced to vote as they were during Soviet times, they know that it is a good thing to do.

The OSCE press conference was a good complement to the day’s visit - it highlighted all of the things that went well with the election: the equipping of the polling stations, training of workers, collection and counting of ballots and reporting of results. It seems that even though the election was relatively clean (see report for some of the concerns), it may not have been representative and, contrary to what some have told me that the act of voting in an internationally legitimate election will be a transformational event for many Kyrgyz, it seems that the country still has a long way to go before it becomes a functioning democracy. Now that the international community has brought clean elections to Kyrgyzstan, can they help create a functional party system that will make voting an act of genuine political expression?

I went around Chui Province today with some of the staff of Interbilim, a local civil society NGO, checking out the observations of electoral stations by trained volunteers. It was interesting to compare the Kyrgyz electoral process with that of the United States:

Kyrgyzstan: Paper ballots placed in a locked glass box at the center of the room. No shenanigans.
USA: See Black Box Voting

Kyrgyzstan: Inking of electors’ thumbs, like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
USA: No inking.

Kyrgyzstan: Nonpartisan observers throughout country plus partisan observers at occasional stations.
USA: Bellyaching over a small OSCE mission.

Having gotten a few gripes with the American electoral process off my chest, it was interesting to see the various quirks of another country’s electoral process. First, you could hear the polling stations from far off - music blared from boom boxes (apparently, this is a typically Kyrgyz gesture). Although I winced at “Livin’ la Vida Loca” playing at one place, the music made the often quiet polling stations a little more lively. Second, the quietness of the polling stations was worrying - even though we had visited halfway through the day, less than 20% of people had voted (we’ll see if more people come in the evening, as some I spoke with predicted). Third, it seemed that voters were not well educated on the candidates and their platforms, despite large posters in many areas in towns with all of their statements. People voted for Bakiev just for the sake of voting for him, rather than any specific policies or ideological alignment. I’m going to look into this further in the days ahead. Fourth was the interesting occurance of ‘drunk voting’ in a village (I’ll say no more on the record). Combined with the absence of local (by this I mean town-scale, not Kyrgyz) organizations such as buses to voting stations or targeted GOTV campaigns, it seems that the massive PR campaign to get people to vote at least partly succeeded - everyone who would vote probably did vote. However, the critical other piece of the voting equation - that people vote based on their political preferences - may not yet be prevalent in Kyrgyzstan. The processes at each place seemed clean enough - everyone was very professional and well-trained. Hopefully, it will turn out as some think, whereby the experience of a good election will be the taste of real democracy that will begin the process of political transformation.

I’ve been a bit under the weather and have nothing new to contribute, so I’ll let some news stories and postings do the talking:

What could be Central Asia’s first fair election takes place tomorrow. The July 4 presidential debate was broadcast over television (which doesn’t reach the estranged rural population). This article presents both sides of the question over whether Kyrgyzstan is becoming more democratic: although good elections could encourage the growth of opposition movements, leading candidate Kurmanbek Bakiev (and all other candidates, for that matter) has not articulated anything approaching a platform. Worryingly, the Acting Finance Minister called on people to vote to save the state money by voting - though it would only save money if the leading candidate (his current boss) won over 50% of the election. Contrary to the belief widely held in the West that the election itself will be a critical turning point for the country, I think that it will be the manner in which the elected government consolidates power and control over the administration - either in a retrograde, corrupt method or a transparent and accountable one - that will truly shape the Kyrgyz political scene in the future - like Bush’s reelection, whether the president will acquire a mandate or not depends on post-election activity. Similarly, I’m not so sure that “a successful election in Kyrgyzstan will contribute greatly to political stability throughout the region” - it seems that the March Revolution scared other countries, particularly Uzbekistan. However, security is a genuine concern: considering the past history of street violence in protests, RFERL asks, will elections be nonviolent? Ya veramos…

There was a big concert tonight in the main square in Bishkek. It was part of a Kyrgyz Rock the Vote campaign (I guess ‘Vote or Die’ probably would not have gone over well here) to get young people involved. A myriad or groups were supporting it, including local ones such asACSSC, KelKel and the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, and international ones such as the American embassy, NDI, OSCE and IFES. It was certainly a big event - possibly the largest peaceful assembly that Bishkek - or Kyrgyzstan for that matter - has ever had. The $64,000 (literally, I would guess) question is: will it have an impact? Did it effectively communicate the message that voting is important? Pundits (if there are such people in Kyrgyzstan) warn of a low turnout that could cast suspicion on the election and could bring up issues of presidential mandate (though in a country that has just overthrown an increasingly authoritarian president, such discussions might not be a bad thing). The concerts helped turn around declining youth voting numbers in the 2004 US election, but arguably other factors made youth more engaged. Will they work here? Unfortunately, there seems to be little in Kyrgyzstan that attracts youth to politics; democracy is viewed in contrast to Soviet times where, although they had very few liberties, people had jobs and could make a living. I’m not sure if big events will change things without being supplemented by other countrywide youth engagement programs (in all fairness, there are other programs being run, but the concert was clearly the cornerstone of the entire operation). We’ll see, however: Sunday’s vote will reveal all…

A freebie for all of my loyal readers:

Need to know whether to address someone with a foreign name as “Mr” or “Ms” in an introductory email? Type their first name into Google Images. Sometimes it’s a tossup, but more often than not, a quick image search clears it up and helps you avoid embarrassment. If possible, “Dr” is always a good alternative.