Kyrgyz Opposition Candidate Seen as Stalking-Horse

The two candidates the Kyrgyz opposition has selected to stand in this summer’s presidential election are respectable choices, although not perhaps a winning team, analysts say.

That has led some analysts to ask whether the opposition's main candidate, Social Democratic Party leader Almazbek Atambaev, might be a stalking-horse who would be replaced by an opposition heavyweight at a later stage in the election race.

The incumbent, Kurmanbek Bakiev, is running for a second term in the July 23 polls. He was elected in July 2005, after he and other members of the then united opposition led mass protests that swept President Askar Akaev from power in March that year.

The early election date took the Kyrgyz political world by surprise when it was announced last month, not least because there had been some controversy over whether it should take place this year or next. (See Surprise Early Polls for Kyrgyzstan, RCA No. 570, 20-Mar-09.)

At a press conference on April 20, the United People’s Movement, UPM – an alliance that unites the major parties ranged against the Bakiev administration – announced that Atambaev, 52, was their lead candidate. Former defence minister Ismail Isakov, 58, was named as his running-mate, or as the opposition put it his “double”, held in reserve in case Atambaev has to pull out.

As Isakov himself told IWPR, “I am a reserve candidate, meaning that we both go for the election… If one of us doesn’t manage to reach the final stage for whatever reason, the other remains and votes go to him.”

Political analysts see the decision to field twin candidates as a tactic to win the maximum number of votes across the country. As political support in Kyrgyzstan tends to be sharply divided between the north and the south, the northerner Atambaev is nicely balanced with the southerner Isakov.

This approach has been used before – when Bakiev, who hails from the south, ran in 2005, he teamed up with the northerner Felix Kulov.

As part of the deal, Kulov was made prime minister, but his political alliance with Bakiev subsequently fell apart and by the spring of 2007 he was leading the opposition.

According to political analyst Nur Omarov, this new pairing is unlikely to create a repeat of those tensions.

“I think they [Atambaev and Isakov] will fight to the finish as a united team. There’s no reason for friction between them, no grounds for conflict,” he said.

Omarov believes the opposition is right to nominate a pair of candidates for another reason, too – the risk that one of them will have to pull out as a result of a campaign to discredit him.

“The reserve candidate is needed because the opposition realises the authorities will move against strong candidates, either by bringing a criminal case against them, or by dredging up their past sins or those committed by their relatives.”

Atambaev was part of the opposition forces involved in the March 2005 revolution, and then served as industry minister before switching to the new anti-Bakiev opposition.

He went on to serve as prime minister for eight months in 2007, as part of what observers saw as a strategy of coopting opposition members.

Now he is part of the UPM, which was forged last December and includes major opposition parties like Ata Meken, Ak Shumkar, Asaba and Jany Kyrgyzstan, as well as Atambaev’s Social Democrats, the only party represented in parliament aside from the governing Ak Jol and a handful of Communists.

Atambaev’s party says he is the right man for the job as he is widely known in Kyrgyzstan, has the right kind of personality and is independently wealthy from running a successful publishing business in the early Nineties.

In an interview for IWPR, Atambaev said, “I know how to impose order in this country and how to put the economy back on its feet. We want to build a state where political power works for the benefit of the people and is strictly accountable to them, a state where there is no scope for dynastic rule.”

He pledged to work to make Kyrgyzstan a country “where opposition journalists don’t get their arms broken, and political opponents are not killed or imprisoned under various pretexts.

Isakov is a former major-general who was defence minister from 2005 until May last year, when he was appointed secretary of Kyrgyzstan’s Security Council. He stepped down from that post in October, accusing the government of authoritarianism and of presiding over corruption. (For a report on this, see Kyrgyz Political Elite Hit by Infighting, RCA No. 552, 21-Oct-08.)

He aligned himself with the opposition, and found himself facing criminal charges relating to alleged abuse of his powers and of public funds during his time as defence minister.

The trial is ongoing, but Isakov told IWPR it would not affect his role as a candidate and that in any case, he was completely innocent of all charges.

Whether the Atambaev-Isakov pairing is the opposition’s final, fixed choice is still open to question.

Omarov believes the opposition will try to anticipate the possibility of a spoiling move against one of the candidates, and may produce a second reserve candidate.

Another analyst, Mars Sariev, believes Atambaev has been put up as a stalking-horse so that the opposition can slot in a more radical figure later on.

“Nominating Atambaev as a candidate is a pre-election manoeuvre, a kind of ploy on the part of the opposition. I don’t think this is the candidate that will rally the electorate,” he said.

“First, the south will never vote for a northerner [Atambaev]. Second, he’s been in government as prime minister… so it’s likely the opposition will have to select another figure. Atambaev is there to take the first hit from the administration, and then he’ll quietly leave the stage.”

So who might replace Atambaev? Sariev sees two likely candidates – Ata Meken Omurbek Tekebaev and Bakytbek Beshimov, who heads the Social Democrat faction in parliament.

Tekebaev, he said, has a reputation for holding consistently to his political principles, whereas Atambaev’s past as prime minister under Bakiev makes him a more ambiguous figure.

The former parliamentary speaker Tekebaev has publicly thrown his weight behind Atambaev. But Sariev says that does not rule him out.

Beshimov, too, has backed the Atambaev-Isakov candidacy as proof that the often divided Kyrgyz opposition has risen above issues of personality.

Sariev says Beshimov is popular among intellectuals but the fact that he was vice-president of the American University of Central Asia could be used against him as evidence of an excessively pro-United States stance.

For the moment, two other well-known opposition figures are officially not running for president - Kulov and Azimbek Beknazarov, the former chief prosecutor who leads the Revolutionary Movement of Kyrgyzstan, the most radical section of the opposition.

Dinara Oshurkhunova, who heads the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, does not believe the opposition is going to produce more candidates out of a hat. As she told the Bishkek Press Club on April 22, the proximity of the election means “the opposition has no time to spring any surprises”.

Although observers are divided on whether the opposition should place all its hopes on Atambaev winning, most agree he is a credible enough candidate, with a strong economic background.

“Atambaev is a seasoned political player, highly educated, with lots of experience in public and political life,” said political analyst Toktogul Kakcheev. “He was persecuted under Akaev, and when he was prime minister under the current administrations, his detractors tried to undermine him. He’s incapable of lying; he always tells the truth.”

Even politicians on the other side of the divide are prepared to admit that Atambaev makes a decent candidate.

“Compared with the other opposition leaders, Atambaev is the best candidate,” said Ulukbek Ormonov, who leads the pro-Bakiev Ak Jol faction in parliament. “People know him as he’s been prime minister. He isn’t an objectionable political figure.”

Of course, Ormonov insists, Bakiev will beat Atambaev hands down on election day.

“People support him [the president], and his rating has gone up in light of recent political developments – the forging of closer ties with Russia and positive changes in the economy.”

As things stand, Jamila Alymbekova of the Central Election Committee told IWPR that only two people have actually registered as candidates so far – Isakov and Jenishbek Nazaraliev, a doctor well-known in Kyrgyzstan for his treatment of drug addiction.

The registration process ends on June 17, after which formal campaigning gets under way.

Anara Yusupova is a pseudonym for a journalist in Bishkek.