Kyrgyzstan, Authoritarianism, and War: Sadyr Japarov’s Response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Vladimir Putin and Sadyr Japarov. Kremlin, 2021.
By Kieran Denny, Carleton University
Central Asia is among the least democratic regions of the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (51), the average country in Central Asia scores a mere 2.5 out of 10 on a combined average of electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties, making it less democratic than Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa (EIU 35). Once described as an “island of democracy” in a sea of authoritarian regimes, Kyrgyzstan under President Sadyr Japarov has been characterized by authoritarian consolidation. With the entire Eurasian region presently being rocked by the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we must ask: does the Russian war effort serve as a boon or a hindrance to democratization efforts in Kyrgyzstan? To answer that question, we must understand how the contemporary political climate of Kyrgyzstan has emerged through popular uprisings, how Japarov rose to power, and how his policies towards Russia have evolved since the February 2022 invasion.
Since independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan has been characterized by a volatile and at times unpredictable political climate, making it an outlier among the entrenched, highly authoritarian regimes of Central Asia. This dynamic has been developing since the Soviet era in Kyrgyzstan and is a result of diverse causes, including the ethnic makeup of the country, the resources available to its government upon independence, and the decisions made by that government when consolidating power. Kyrgyzstan has seen three major popular uprisings resulting in changes in power, with the most recent culminating in the release from prison and presidency of Sadyr Japarov, a populist who had held various posts in government and opposition until his arrest in 2017 for his role in violent protests. Another such uprising would be a worst-case scenario for Japarov’s government. Analysis of the situation reveals that as such, Japarov has strengthened Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with the Kremlin only insofar as it helps the economy of Kyrgyzstan, the health of which is vital to the maintenance of his authoritarian regime. An understanding of this is an absolute necessity for those looking to preserve what remains of Kyrgyz democracy. To gain this understanding, we can look back to see how the pre-Japarov political climate created unstable governments prone to popular revolution, how this state of affairs allowed Japarov to rise to power, and how he has leveraged his country’s relationship with Russia in the post-invasion era to ensure that such an uprising does not take place once more.
The story of authoritarianism in Kyrgyzstan begins in the Soviet Union. As compared to other Soviet Socialist Republics in Central Asia, the Kyrgyz SSR saw a relatively low degree of ethnic homogeneity. According to the 1989 Soviet census, the Kyrgyz majority made up only 52.4% of the population, as compared to 72.0% in Turkmenistan, 71.4% in Uzbekistan, and 62.3% in Tajikistan. Of the Central Asian republics, only Kazakhstan saw a smaller share of the population for its titular ethnic group, with Kazakhs making up only 39.7% of the population in 1989 (Goskomstata Rossii). Russians and Uzbeks made up the bulk of the remaining population of Kyrgyzstan, at 21.5% and 12.9% respectively (Filonyk 1994, 149). This made it difficult for the country’s first president, Askar Akaev to consolidate power among already tense groups, with systemic inequalities and grievances on all sides. While perhaps not a direct cause of popular uprisings in Kyrgyzstan, ethnic differences have certainly made consolidating power more complicated in Kyrgyzstan than in neighbouring countries (Filonyk 157). Also of note is that the Kyrgyz branch of the KGB was relatively poorly equipped upon independence, making it more difficult for elites to suppress dissent by force than was the case in neighbouring countries (Sjöberg 82). These factors together made it such that once the conditions for a popular uprising took form, such uprisings were able to instigate regime change as opposed to being repressed as they were elsewhere in Central Asia.
Before Japarov’s rise, which will be addressed later, two popular uprisings took place in Kyrgyzstan resulting in the removal of the head of state. These were the “Tulip Revolution” of 2005 and the April uprising of 2010. The Tulip Revolution took place in the context of the “colour revolutions,” a series of successful and unsuccessful attempts at changes in power by popular uprisings across the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, with various social and political backgrounds. The Tulip Revolution in particular had perhaps the least politically coherent motive, instead being pushed for by local elites in the South of the country in a bid for more influence. Cummings and Ryabkov (244) write: “[The majority of analysts of Kyrgyzstan] argue that the coloured revolutions, and most poignantly the Tulip Revolution, were elite, not mass instigated.” While protests against corruption in the Akaev government certainly had a role to play, it is widely accepted that support of the revolution by local elites in the South were largely responsible for the fall of his government.
The April Uprising is a different case. In April 2010, demonstrations against the government, this time of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, resulted in his resignation and the election of a new government. As opposed to the Tulip Revolution, the primary motivation of the April uprising was clear, being a direct result of dissatisfaction in increasing electricity prices and blackouts, alongside the arrests of opposition politicians (Wooden 465-67). According to Wooden (466):
“The government more than doubled tariffs for electricity, water and district heating for domestic users and increased prices by about 30% for businesses. Analysts had for years commented on the need to increase tariffs to address infrastructural vulnerabilities and improve maintenance, and prices had been increased once.”
With the removal of one President motivated largely by dissatisfied local elites and that of another by a population dissatisfied with largely economic issues, we can begin to paint a picture of Japarov’s main focuses in preventing his own removal by popular uprising: a highly centralized state, minimizing the role of local elites and a good (or at the least functional) economy, which appears to be the focus of his decisions with regards to the Kremlin. We must of course be careful to avoid oversimplifying the causes of the Tulip Revolution and April Uprising; corruption, perceived electoral manipulation, and prominent arrests all had very important roles to play. However the circumstances under which Japarov acquired the presidency provide further evidence that the strengthening of Kyrgyzstan’s economy is central to Japarov’s approach to Kyrgyzstan-Russia relations.
President Sadyr Japarov’s rise to power took place over a backdrop of economic hardship and the COVID-19 pandemic. Kyrgyzstan’s already struggling economy, the smallest in Central Asia, was not equipped to handle the economic strain of lockdowns and restrictions, with over 700,000 Kyrgyz people losing their jobs. The government became increasingly indebted to Russia and China, with the national debt reaching USD 4.8 billion by the time protests took place in October 2020. Corruption also continued to run rampant, with the initially popular anti-corruption policies of Presidents Almazbek Atambaev and Sooronbay Jeenbekov being applied highly selectively to allow positions of power to be filled with loyalists, often along clan lines. It is important to observe here that clan-based preferential treatment can often break along political lines in practice, as specific clans are often overrepresented within individual parties (Szukalski 275-76).
As the election campaign began to unfold, the already dissatisfied population began to protest. Foremost among their grievances was that the Central Electoral Commission had only allowed the participation of sixteen of the forty-four registered parties, of which only four achieved the 7% vote threshold to hold seats in the Jogorku Kenesh, Kyrgyzstan’s national assembly. After calls by electorally unsuccessful opposition leaders to take to the streets of Bishkek, protests began, with protestors numbering in the thousands. Initially peaceful, the protests quickly devolved into violence after the deaths of multiple protestors, including a nineteen-year-old. Sadyr Japarov, at that time still in prison, was released and soon appointed president after the hasty resignation of Jeenbekov (Szukalski 277-79).
As has been stated previously, Kyrgyzstan is a country whose post-independence history has been defined by popular uprisings. While the reasons for these uprisings are diverse, some of the principal causes have been an imbalance in power between the central government and the local elites, and a population deeply unsatisfied with the state of the Kyrgyz economy. Given the context of Japarov’s rise (that of a failing economy in Kyrgyzstan), it is fair to say that turning the economy around was part of the implied mandate given to him by the protestors who all but installed his government. As such, looking at Japarov’s actions through a lens of economic (as opposed to political) positioning clarifies the motivations behind some of his foreign policy actions, especially his trade policies with Russia.
After Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia began to look to an increasingly small list of friendly nations willing to do business with the Kremlin. This gave rise, practically overnight, to a cottage industry of sanctions evasion in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan has been among the most enthusiastic of the Central Asian nations in this pursuit; imports from China and the West have increased exponentially after the rollout of sanctions, with the vast majority of this new capital almost certainly being re-exported to Russia. Trade between Kyrgyzstan and China in battery electric vehicles, for example, increased by over 2000% between 2021 and 2022 and by almost 800% again in 2023, despite only thirty charging stations existing in the country for such vehicles. Dual-use technologies such as ball bearings have also been imported and re-exported liberally by Kyrgyzstan, implicating them directly in the Russian war effort (Webster 2024). While this is of economic benefit to Kyrgyzstan and Japarov’s regime by extension, Kyrgyzstan must walk a thin line between claiming the economic benefit of transshipment to Russia and alarming the West to the point that they too are sanctioned. In light of this, Kyrgyzstan has blocked transactions with certain Russian financial institutions with the publicly stated aim of avoiding additional sanctions (Agence France-Presse).
Kyrgyzstan’s decision to sanction certain Russian financial institutions reinforces the claim that Japarov sees the war as a means to improve economic conditions and, by extension, the longevity of his regime. Of course, fully condemning the war and sanctioning the Russian Federation was completely out of the question given Kyrgyzstan’s pre-existing economic ties to Russia. However Kyrgyzstan has not, as outlined above, whole-heartedly joined the Russian camp. If Japarov was to do so as Lukashenko, Assad, or Kim did and face the full might of Western sanctions he would cause an economic disaster at home, leading to similar or worse conditions than those preceding the uprisings of 2020 and 2010. Instead, he must perform a delicate calculus with regards to Russia, keeping strong enough economic ties to reap the benefits of sanctions evasion via transshipment while not growing so close to Putin’s regime personally so as to invite sanctions against Kyrgyzstan.
A similar dynamic plays out when we examine Kyrgyz economic migration to Russia. Kyrgyzstan’s economy remains heavily dependent on remittances from Kyrgyz workers in Russia, where wages are higher, with the war presenting both benefits and risks to this sector of the economy. The primary benefit to Kyrgyzstan is that revenue from this sector is increasing, reaching USD 1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023. Of concern to Kyrgyzstan is that Kyrgyz workers in Russia are reportedly being intimidated into joining the Russian military under threat of jail time (Lubin and Goodby). It is technically illegal for Kyrgyz citizens to take part in foreign wars and some arrests have taken place in Kyrgyzstan. However those punished number in the single digits, and there has been no campaign on the part of the Kyrgyz government to halt Russian attempts to enlist Kyrgyz soldiers (RFE/RL). Although the government of Kyrgyzstan does not want to be perceived as supplying soldiers to Putin’s war effort, the loss of remittance money from Russia would spell economic disaster. As such, lip service is paid to anti-war elements by conducting arrests in very small numbers, despite no substantive action being taken to prevent the participation of Kyrgyz citizens abroad in the war.
Overall, Japarov’s gambit with Russia looks to be paying off, and a fourth popular uprising in Kyrgyzstan appears unlikely. While one must always be wary of equating correlation to causation, it remains a fact that both 2010 and 2020 were preceded by declines in Kyrgyzstan’s GDP per capita and that since 2022, GDP per capita has been on a steady rise (IMF 2024). Of course, the economy is not the only factor. Corruption, border conflicts, and world events have played and will continue to play a large role in determining Kyrgyzstan’s future. That said, in trying to avoid the economic conditions of 2010 and 2020, Japarov has leveraged the opportunities of the Russo-Ukrainian War to greatly improve his chances of staying in power in the long-term; he proverbially has his cake and eats it too by maintaining both steady economic growth and strengthening ties to the Kremlin. While this is good news for Japarov and perhaps for Kyrgyzstan’s stability, it is bad news for democracy. A predictable authoritarian regime in Kyrgyzstan is in the best interest of both Putin and Japarov, and with no major political entities invested in a democratic transition, the prospects of Kyrgyz democracy appear bleak. As further consolidation and centralization of power takes place in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia’s island of democracy sinks further into the sea.
Works Cited
Agence France-Presse. “Kyrgyzstan to Stop Accepting Russian Payment Cards.” France 24, 2 Apr. 2024, www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240402-kyrgyzstan-to-stop-accepting-russian-payment-cards. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.
Cummings, Sally N., and Maxim Ryabkov. “Situating the ‘Tulip Revolution.’” Central Asian Survey, vol. 27, no. 3-4, Dec. 2008, pp. 241–52, https://doi.org/10.1080/02634930802535847.
Economist Intelligence Unit. Democracy Index 2023. The Economist, 2023.
Filonyk, Alexander O. “Kyrgyzstan.” Central Asia and the Caucuses after the Soviet Union, University Press of Florida, 1994, pp. 149–63.
Goskomstata Rossii. “Демографические Показатели по 15 Новым Независимым Государствам [Demographic Indicators for 15 Newly Independent States].” Demoskop Weekly, Mar. 2013, www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/sng_nac_89.php. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.
IMF. “Kyrgyz Republic and the IMF.” International Monetary Fund, Apr. 2024, www.imf.org/en/Countries/KGZ. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.
Lubin, Nancy, and James Goodby. “Central Asia and the War in Ukraine.” Nuclear Security Dialogue Essay Series, Hoover Institution Press, 14 Dec. 2023, www.hoover.org/research/central-asia-and-war-ukraine#13. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.
RFE/RL Kyrgyzstan. “Another Kyrgyz Jailed for Fighting with Russian Troops in Ukraine.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 24 June 2024, www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyz-man-prison-term-joining-russian-troops-invading-ukraine/33006815.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.
Szukalski, Jerzy. “The October Revolution of 2020 in Kyrgyzstan and the Security Problem in Central Asia.” Studia Politologiczne, vol. 73, no. 3, Sept. 2024, pp. 272–93, https://doi.org/10.33896/spolit.2024.73.16. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.
Webster, Joseph. “The Kyrgyzstan Route Facilitating Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.” The Interpreter, The Lowy Institute, 23 Apr. 2024, www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/kyrgyzstan-route-facilitating-russia-s-invasion-ukraine.
Wooden, Amanda E. “Kyrgyzstan’s Dark Ages: Framing and the 2010 Hydroelectric Revolution.” Central Asian Survey, vol. 33, no. 4, Oct. 2014, pp. 463–81, https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2014.989755.