Kulov works in opposition

Akayev is working on his mistakes

Yesterday in Bishkek, ex-Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Felix Kulov announced his transition to opposition to the current government in the country - as predicted by the Vremya Novostey newspaper on February 14. Yesterday, but already in Moscow, Kulov’s decision was supported by the ex-president of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev. But first things first.

Felix Kulov’s speech at the Ak-Keme Hotel in Bishkek was perhaps the main event of the winter political season in Kyrgyzstan. The end of the three-week pause that he took after his resignation as prime minister was awaited with impatience and even tension. After Askar Akayev fled the country on March 24, 2005, there were no longer any active politicians with such experience and charisma in Kyrgyzstan. Suffice it to remember how many posts and occupations 58-year-old Kulov has changed since the late 1980s - Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vice-President of the Republic (the first and so far the last in its history), Governor of the Chui region, Head of the National Security Service, Mayor of Bishkek, prisoner , Prime Minister. It is easy to see that only the presidential position is not on this list yet. However, after Mr. Kulov's speech yesterday, there was open talk in Kyrgyzstan about his long-term sights on 2010, when the next presidential elections are due to take place in the country.

...Before making a statement, Felix Kulov was slightly worried, shifting from foot to foot at the podium with a microphone, in front of which an armada of journalists had already lined up. “I’ll be extremely frank, I didn’t have and don’t have any great desire to clean up the dirt in politics. But in the current situation, the question is not whether I want or don’t want, whether I can or cannot,” said Kulov, “I am simply forced and obligated to fight those real threats that, if not really countered, could lead the country to disaster.” " The text I read was quite lengthy. Kulov did not hide the name of the main political character, whom he considers guilty of his removal from power - this is President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, with whom he formed a political tandem in May 2005.

“I was repeatedly told and warned that my tandem partner was waiting for an opportunity to get rid of me,” said Kulov. “But I tried not to think about it, especially since for me such concepts as a man’s word, a word of honor, are not an empty phrase and not some kind of tactical move in the political struggle.” The former prime minister frankly reminded the head of state that it was the votes of Kulov’s supporters that ensured the victory of the tandem in the 2005 elections, which brought Bakiyev to the presidency. Mr. Kulov apologized to them for “not fully justifying their hopes” and “not always successfully resisting the vicious management scheme that was gaining strength, which was crushing everything.”

The former prime minister also named the main features of this system of governing the country. This is “the seizure of someone else’s property, including state property, by a certain group of people, the division of people along regional lines, the transfer of most television channels to the control of people close to the same family,” as well as the beginning of persecution of people who do not agree with the “guiding line.” And finally, Kulov reported on the information he had received about impending attempts on the lives of people from his circle. He announced his decision to “lead disparate but congenial socio-political forces seeking fundamental positive change.” After which he declared himself “an opponent of what all decent people are against.”

Former President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev, who spoke yesterday at a discussion at the Carnegie Moscow Center, called Kulov's transition to the opposition the step of a “responsible and courageous politician.” He hopes that the ex-prime minister will be able to prevent people from taking to the streets this spring, which could lead to a new storming of the Bishkek White House, similar to what happened two years ago during the “Tulip Revolution.” However, Mr. Akaev believes, if Kulov had taken this step in November 2006, when the opposition held powerful rallies in Bishkek, demanding the resignation of President Bakiev (as well as Kulov himself), then he “would no longer be a leader today opposition, but the leader of the nation."

Moscow State University professor Akaev (as he introduced himself yesterday) said that he has now completely distanced himself from politics and is engaged in pure science. The ex-president draws lessons from the 15-year period of his rule (1990-2005) - by analogy with French history, he called it the time of the “first republic” in Kyrgyzstan. Answering a question from Vremya Novostei, Mr. Akaev seemed to admit for the first time one of his main mistakes made in those years: the elimination of parliamentary elections based on the lists of political parties, which led to the curtailment of the real political process in the country. The Moscow State University professor said that, after retiring, he plans to write a book called “My Mistakes.” He did not say how voluminous this monograph might be.

Arkady DUBNOV