Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (58 page)

Central Asian presidential parties fundamentally differ from their Soviet

antecedents in a number of ways. In general, the parties have not pene-

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24 For Turkmenistan see Gleason (1997, 116).

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221

trated society to the same degree. Whereas the Communist Party and the

USSR were indistinguishable and the CP served the ambitions for all Soviet

leaders, post-Soviet Central Asian presidential parties are pale shadows of

their communist predecessors. Today, parties exist at the pleasure of the

president, and can be dissolved or ignored.

As parties do not have real power, voters cannot exploit them for re-

sources, nor can they use them to exert control over the system or bring

presidents to book. Party leaders are non-entities and, worse, are subject to

constant rotation. New faces, programs, and initiatives all make it difficult

to gain voter loyalty and serve to confuse the electorate. Party strengths are

routinely exaggerated to create the impression of vibrant civic activism. It

is difficult, for example, to reconcile the staggering number of party

branches alleged to exist in Uzbekistan with the complete absence of visi-

ble party activity in the country. Moreover, the parties see people in the

abstract sense. Their appeals are Soviet-style and wooden; they offer no

mobilizing call for change or critique of the status quo. Instead, they

maintain that the regime has done a tremendous job and should be en-

dorsed indefinitely.

In Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev consistently ran as an independent candi-

date and only in 2005, on the eve of his downfall, did he make a feeble

effort to establish a pro-presidential party,
Alga Kyrgyzstan
(“Forward Kyrgyzstan”) whose fortunes were reversed as suddenly as those of the presi-

dent. In Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov dithered before deciding in

the middle of the 1990s that the president should not be a member of any

political party. While presenting this as a noble attempt to put the president

above politics, it was more likely to guarantee that the president would be

unencumbered by any party duties or obligations. At each parliamentary

election, Karimov oversaw the creation of a new pro-presidential party to

instill new momentum into the elections and reinforce the image of

Uzbekistan as a multiparty democracy. In all, Karimov created five pro-

presidential parties (simultaneously outlawing all opposition parties) but

never accepted the presidential nomination from the same party twice,

further freeing himself from being tied to any of his political progeny in

the public mind. Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev also vacillated

throughout the 1990s until, coming under renewed pressure from presi-

dential aspirants, he established
Otan
(Fatherland) to provide a nursery for pro-presidential sycophants. His experimentation with allowing another

strong pro-presidential party (
Azar
) vie for the people’s affections (admit-

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tedly led by the president’s daughter) ended in 2007 with the merger of

Azar
with
Otan
to become
Nur Otan
.
Nur Otan
won all seats in the 2007

parliamentary election, completing the process of Kazakhstan’s journey

back to a one-party state. However, the exigencies of diplomacy and real-

politik produced the remarkable feat that Kazakhstan was selected to chair

in 2010 the OSCE, an organization whose remit includes the monitoring of

elections in member states. This is all the more remarkable given the fact

that since independence not one of Kazakhstan’s parliamentary or presi-

dential elections has been judged free or fair by the OSCE.

In Tajikistan, the Peoples Democratic Party, established in 1994 as the

country descended ever further into civil war, was founded as a counter-

pole to the opposition that had set themselves the task of ousting President

Rakhmonov. Ever since, it has dominated parliament but not national

politics, which remain firmly in the grasp of the collective farm director

turned state president. A 1997 agreement that brought the civil war for-

mally to an end guaranteed the United Tajik Opposition a 30 per cent stake

in power but initial token efforts to implement the power-sharing aspects

of the agreement were quickly abandoned in favor of centralized executive

power. Only Turkmenistan refused to engage in the pretence of multi-

party democracy. Asked (in Washington DC, 1998) why he didn’t allow

opposition parties to organize freely, President Niyazov drolly replied that

there were no opposition parties in Turkmenistan “so how can we grant

them freedom” (Sabol 2003, 51). One of his party chiefs further explained

that opposition arises when leaders make mistakes but as Niyazov did not

make mistakes no opposition arose (Akbarzadeh 1999, 275).

Destined to Lose: Opposition Parties and Elections

Real opposition parties, which are those that are not manufactured by the

regime, are usually co-opted or neutralized. Those that remain find them-

selves in something of a quandary. Since their only role in elections is to

lose, there is often a debate as to the virtue of participation and the appro-

priate response to the inevitable defeat.25 If they participate in what they

——————

25 Lindberg’s (2006) analysis (based on database of 95 executive and 125 legislative elections between 1989 and 2003) concludes party boycotts are generally a sign of weakness rather than strength; the last resort of the impotent rather than a weapon capable of

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223

know can only be a rigged contest, they may simply lend legitimacy to a

system designed to marginalize them in perpetuity. Their role, as in the

warm-up gladiatorial acts of old, is to provide an opponent for the star of

the stage and die gracefully before public view. The decisive manner by

which they are dispatched reinforces the perceived strength of the victor

and the impossibility of challenging him. It is not only a win but a warning;

look what happens to those that take me on, challenge at your peril. If the

opposition boycott, however, they risk further marginalization and may

simply confirm their impotency to the electorate. Ignored between elec-

tions, a national contest provides opposition parties with a brief moment

in the spotlight to show their wares, be afforded some media coverage,

and, under international scrutiny, organize relatively unmolested. The pres-

ence of election monitors and media correspondents reduces the chances

of being summarily imprisoned for agitation. Once the election count is

over and the regime re-installed for another term, the opposition are again

faced with a choice; bow out with or without scowls of derision, or mobi-

lize a challenge to the result. Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution” of March

2005, when angry mobs stormed the White House in protest against rigged

parliamentary election and ousted President Akaev in the process, was the

most dramatic example of the latter strategy. The result however owed

more to the weakness of the state than the strength of civil society. Pilfer-

ing through state coffers by the president’s family, friends, and allies had

reduced the state to a rotten edifice so that even a mild kick through the

front door was enough to seize power. The chief beneficiary of the coup,

Kurmanbek Bakiev, further entrenched corruption and electoral fraud to

an extent that the Akaev era was looked on by many with an air of nostal-

gia. That said, the Tulip Revolution proved that elections, for all their

stage-managed excesses, still present the potential for an organized and

determined opposition to dislodge a politically ailing incumbent.

Conclusion

The euphoria that accompanied the end of Cold War has subsided and the

optimism about post-Soviet democratic trajectories has been eroded with

——————

dislodging the incumbent regime. This certainly corresponds with the experience in Central Asia.

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every election. It was commonly assumed that post-Soviet states were on a

transition
to
democracy and early problems were thought to be the inevitable teething problems arising from the dislocation caused by the USSR’s

implosion. If, as some suggest, the world has witnessed a democratic reces-

sion in recent times, Central Asia has played its fair share in the crisis of

confidence. The region has succeeded in burgling well-meaning donor

agencies of hundreds of millions while drying up a reservoir of goodwill

for democracy promotion in the region.

After almost two decades, we can make some tentative conclusions

about how elections are conducted in post-Soviet Central Asia. Faking

democracy is not the unintended consequence of electoral mismanagement

or inexperience. Nor is it a mistake, the unfortunate result of incompe-

tence, or an inability to digest imported Western electoral methodology. It

is the product of a communist past combined with a communist-trained

present and an increasingly cultivated “Asian” approach that officially

stresses consensus, compliance and hierarchy as cardinal virtues. Everyone

from the presidentially appointed Central Election Committee to the hum-

ble voter has their role to play in the deception and, like faking an orgasm,