On September 25, the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) celebrated its 25th anniversary. On that day, in 1993, the first congress of the party was held in Bishkek. Yesterday, the party leader and ex-president Almazbek Atambayev congratulated the party members on their jubilee and acknowledged the personnel mistakes made during his term of office. He also counts on "building independent Kyrgyzstan" and "future victories". The experts regarded Atambayev's statement as a return to big politics.
Almazbek Atambayev, the founder of the SDPK, was its permanent leader until being elected president of Kyrgyzstan in December 2011. Six years later, Atambaev headed the party againafter the resignation. In March 2018, he was elected chairman of the SDPK. However, the party split by this time. Once the leading and most numerous faction in the Jogorku Kenesh (the parliament) was transferred to Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov's control. Party conferences under the slogan 'SDPK without Atambaev' were held in the republic. The opposition faction Ata-Meken insists on checking Atabmaev's activities as president. The deputies intend to force disclosure of information about a number of his decisions on personnel appointments, which caused major scandals in the country. Several members of the SDPK were accused of corruption and put in jail. In particular, former Prime Minister Sapar Isakov and former Energy Minister Kubanychbek Kulmatov.
However, Atambaev admitted his personnel mistakes. In his statement, he stressed the need to clean up the party ranks. "In recent years, members of our party have largely influenced personnel policy and made mistakes, and I made mistakes in human resources management myself. The closeness to power makes any party attractive for "clinging types" and unscrupulous careerists, which also affected the SDPK. We could not get rid of such personnel in time," Atambayev said. According to him, history has repeatedly put the SDPK before a difficult choice, and now the party is going through the most difficult and painful stage of purification. "Today, some of those who owe their positions and deputy mandates to our party, those who were nominated to high state posts on behalf of the SDPK, are doing their best to split our party, to discredit the SDPK. Therefore, we need to make a deep analysis of the party's activities, experience, comprehend what has been achieved and draw conclusions from the mistakes made. It also gives us a unique opportunity to clear ourselves of "clinging people" and random fellow travelers, to ensure the influx of new forces into the party," Atambaev stressed in his address. The SDPK leader said that in the future the party will rely on the accumulated experience of political activity. According to him, it is "open to everyone, including young people."
However, according to the Kyrgyz politician Ravshan Dzheyenbekov, misguided personnel policy has been conducted since the first years of gaining independence. "This phenomenon has reached a high level in the last 10 years. It was facilitated by a corrupt party system, when individual leaders, referring to the party, appointed their relatives to ministerial positions, deputy positions, even as the head of government," Dzheyenbekov told Vestnik Kavkaza.
Kyrgyz expert Mars Sariev believes that it is too early to write off Atambaev from the country's political arena. "Atambaev's political statement, recognition of his mistakes in human resources management is a principle of judo, which, incidentally, is successfully applied by Russian President Vladimir Putin - give in to win. Atambayev made it clear that he adequately perceives criticism and admits it. It's a bid for his return to the active political phase," Mars Sariev told Vestnik Kavkaza. According to the expert, Atambaev does not even need to do something special, just, as the Chinese wisdom says, "sit by the river and wait for the body of his enemy floating by."
Atambayev, most likely, will purge the party ranks and refresh them at the expense of those clans which remained out of work after Sooronbai Jeenbekov came to power. According to Mars Sariev, he "counts on the consolidation of the thinking part of the population." Atambayev will work in several planes. His resource is the Russian-speaking part of the country's population and secular, urban Kyrgyz people, who fear a bias towards Islam. These are those elites removed from "the feeding trough". This is business taxed with additional taxes. The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry also helped, which announced Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Bishkek. However, according to other information, the Russian president will visit only Dushanbe and Tashkent. It turns out that on the one side there are Jeenbekov, the EU, the West, Turkey and the civil society, NGOs. On the other side, there are Russian-speaking - national minorities, Russian, Slavic peoples and urban residents oriented to Eurasianism. Here is the split. Atambaev will use it," Sariev believes.
For the incumbent president the situation is exacerbated by the economic crisis. "The number of non-performing plants is not decreasing," Kyrgyz Economy Minister Oleg Pankratov said. "Currently, 38 enterprises are out of commission". The volume of direct foreign investments in the republic also decreased. According to the National Statistics Committee of Kyrgyzstan, it declined by 33.2% in the first half of 2018. This decline is explained by international investors' loss of confidence in the republic. Getting loans for Bishkek is also problematic. The Chinese direction is completely discredited by the scandalous credit received for the modernization of the Bishkek TPP. Turkey has no money, Saudi Arabia - it's unlikely that President Jeenbekov will take the risk of getting a loan from them. All that's left is Moscow. But asking for help from the Russian Federation requires changing their orientation. Now the U.S. hopes for normalization of relations with Kyrgyzstan. Remember that the American air base was abolished and the treaty of friendship was denounced under Atambayev.
