Kyrgyzstan: democratic transition or descent to the chaos?

Abstract

The Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan has been placed, in recent times, in the focus of international attention. In April 2010, popular revolts succeeded, again – as in March 2005 - to completely destroy a political system that was been consolidating for at least the previous four years. Currently, the country is undergoing a transition process led by the first woman to be president across Central Asia region, Rosa Otunbaeva, with a reformist program, also unprecedented in the region, which tries to promote parliamentarism against presidentialism as political option. However, there are many challenges facing this process, as has been observed in the outbreak of violence that ravaged the south of the country in June, and with various amounts of interest, both internal and external, that could blow up this process. It would, therefore, desirable that the international community could offer their support to this experience in a region of vital strategical interest in issues such as development of the Afghan conflict, the spread of extremist Islam, the management of energy resources, the proliferation of drug trafficking and the consolidation of democracy in the region.