Comments on: Candidate Akmatbaev

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Voices from Central Asia and the Caucasus

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:35:42 +0000

[...] Kyrgyzstan: Amira over at The Golden Road to Samarqand says that infamous politician/businessman/criminal Ryspek Akmatbaev can run for parliament – after months of controversy and mutual accusations between different political camps. Nathan of The Registan also has some thoughts on the issue as has David Read. Edil Baisalov takes issue with how Ryspek Akmatbayev has been described in a Reuters article – i.e. as a controversial businessman. He argues that Akmatbayev is, in fact, much worse than just simply controversial (Link in Russian). The Kyrgyzstan Student Blog features several posts: Nurilya writes about one of her friends that got kidnapped and forcefully married to a stranger, unfortunately rather the rule than exception in Kyrgyzstan. Gulbara writes about ‘our capital Bishkek’, and gives a pretty uplifting account of what the capital means to the Kyrgyz nation (Link in Russian). More on a potential civil war in Kyrgyzstan, youth, a clean capital, and crime and rape in a multi-mini-essay post. [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 17:09:44 +0000

I don’t much like Bakiev either. But a wise man once said that democracy is not about who is in power, democracy is about who the next person in power is.
As long Bakiev allows a fair and honest election for his own next term (and keeps the country together until then) frustrated Kyrgyz may choose to fire him… which may be a real good thing. In the meantime, some constitutional reform would be nice.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:25:02 +0000

I don’t expect much, but Bakiev has long struck me as a featherweight who somehow got stuck in with the heavyweights. It’s not so much that he is weak but that he telegraphs indecision and weakness at almost every opportunity.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:00:39 +0000

It’s only been a year, so what does everyone expect really? Certainly this is a test, but hasn’t this whole thing really been ‘putting the cart before the horse’?
As Chesteron wisely said, “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.”