Outlook for Kyrgyzstan is bad, whoever wins at polls is the pessimistic assessment:
Toktaiym Umetalieva, a presidential candidate, says that nothing has changed since Mr Akayev left except that Kyrgyzstan has grown unstable.“What happened on March 24 was not a revolution. It was a transfer of power and wealth to lesser oligarchs that resented the Akayev clan,” she says.
Her assistant, Urlan Esengylov, a law student, says: “We don’t have democracy in Kyrgyzstan. And we won’t have it. People are just not accustomed to it.”
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What a weak article. Any journalist who quotes Toktaiym Umetalieva, without noting that she is an entirely discredited pro-akaev activist, seems lazy at best. I love the pure indolence of then only interviewing her assistant for the second back-up quote. The British press just gets worse and worse. Kyrgyzstan may not have a democracy as we know it, and maybe the new lot aren’t much better than the old, but they’re still a damn sight more liberal than their neighbours, and under huge pressure from their SCO ‘allies’.
Radio Liberty/Free Europe states that she was staunchly critical of Akayev during his term, im confused…….
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