Kyrgyzstan Features - The Times Of Central Asia

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Former Presidents

What Do Former Presidents Do? From Akayev to Nazarbayev, the Fates of Central Asia’s Ex-Leaders

Central Asia has produced remarkably few former presidents who simply retired from public life. In Kyrgyzstan, former leaders have been driven from office, prosecuted, imprisoned, or forced into exile. Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev has followed a different path, largely withdrawing from public view after losing much of his political influence. Elsewhere, some of the region’s founding presidents died in office, leaving no post-presidential career to examine. The Times of Central Asia has previously examined how political succession has developed across the region. The fate of leaders after they leave office reveals another side of that political tradition. The architect of Kyrgyzstan’s early post-Soviet political model was its first president, Askar Akayev, who remained in office until 2005. Akayev introduced democratic institutions in Kyrgyzstan, but gradually tightened the pressure on his opponents as his presidency progressed. His rule was badly shaken by the Aksy shootings in 2002, which followed the prosecution of opposition lawmaker Azimbek Beknazarov and a territorial dispute with China. Akayev’s government had agreed to transfer disputed border territory to China, a decision fiercely criticized by the opposition. In March 2002, demonstrators in southern Kyrgyzstan demanded Akayev’s impeachment. Security forces opened fire during the unrest, killing several people. The shootings became one of the defining political crises of his presidency. In a 2003 referendum, Akayev significantly strengthened presidential powers at parliament’s expense. Economic hardship, unemployment, widespread corruption, and allegations of fraud in the 2005 parliamentary elections eventually helped trigger the Tulip Revolution in March of that year. Akayev had to flee, with rumors at the time claiming that he was smuggled out in the trunk of an official car, wrapped in a carpet. Criminal cases involving corruption were opened against him and members of his family in Kyrgyzstan. The authorities repeatedly sought his extradition from Russia, but were unsuccessful. After leaving Kyrgyzstan, Akayev lived in Moscow and taught at Moscow State University. In 2006, he became a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In August 2021, Akayev reappeared in Bishkek. He unexpectedly flew into the country and was immediately questioned as part of the criminal investigation into corruption surrounding the Kumtor gold mine. Afterward, he said he had come to Bishkek for a week and was prepared to assist investigators. “I came to speak honestly and sincerely about how we built Kumtor, why we built it, and what mistakes may have been made. The investigation will continue,” he said. In 2023, Kyrgyzstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the criminal prosecution of Akayev had been terminated because the statute of limitations had expired. Tajikistan’s former president Rahmon Nabiyev was also forced from power. The former Soviet politician lost power amid the country’s civil war in 1992. He died at his home in Khujand the following year, at the age of 62, reportedly from a heart attack. According to his wife, Nabiyev spent his final months in Khujand in conditions resembling house arrest and received a pension of just five rubles. While Tajikistan did not repeat the experiment of violently...

World Nomad Games

Independence Day, SCO Summit and World Nomad Games Converge in Bishkek

Kyrgyzstan is preparing for one of its busiest days in years. August 31 marks the 35th anniversary of the country’s independence, a day which will also see the opening ceremony of the sixth World Nomad Games. Meanwhile, leaders from the SCO’s ten member states, including Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, are also expected in Bishkek for a summit. The overlap is partly by design. Organizers say the World Nomad Games opening ceremony will be staged at Bishkek Arena on August 31, alongside the SCO summit program, ahead of the stadium’s formal opening later in September. The new stadium is designed for 51,000 spectators. The formal SCO Council of Heads of State meeting is scheduled for September 1. A detailed public timetable for the summit has not yet been issued. Presidential spokesman Askat Alagozov has said 21 heads of state are expected in Kyrgyzstan during this period, with several also making state visits. The World Nomad Games ceremony will include a parade of participating teams and a short concert program in front of the visiting leaders. Independence Day itself remains set for August 31. President Sadyr Japarov has instructed organizers to hold concerts and entertainment across the regions that day. The main state celebration of the 35th anniversary, however, will take place in Talas on September 11 and 12, which had already been selected to host the program before the August schedule took shape. [caption id="attachment_53765" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Dancers perform during a previous Independence Day celebration in Bishkek. Photo: Stephen M. Bland/TCA.[/caption] Bishkek is preparing for the movement restrictions that come with diplomatic gatherings. Alagozov asked residents, where possible, to spend August 30, August 31, and September 1 at Issyk-Kul or elsewhere. “Otherwise, the inconvenience will affect you first of all, because roads in the city will be frequently closed for three days,” he said. September 1 will be a paid day off for employees of state and municipal institutions in the capital, with private employers advised to make similar arrangements. City Hall began planning well in advance. In October 2025, Mayor Aibek Dzhunushaliev called for a single operational protocol covering public transport, restrictions, fan zones, and other logistics. “Our main goal is to create comprehensive infrastructure and ensure a high international standard for these events,” he said. The city has since been preparing fan zones so residents and visitors can follow the main programs away from secured venues. Health and emergency planning has followed the same approach. Kyrgyzstan has already held public-health exercises ahead of the Games. The Ministry of Health said on August 10 that more than 600 medical workers are expected to support the SCO and World Nomad Games. Medical posts, strengthened ambulance teams, and a mobile hospital are planned at event sites. The World Nomad Games are familiar territory for Kyrgyzstan. The country staged the first three editions in 2014, 2016, and 2018, before the event moved to Turkey in 2022 and Kazakhstan in 2024. Its return to Kyrgyzstan has grown into a much larger operation....

Growth Forecasts

Why Central Asia Growth Forecasts Differ So Sharply

How fast can Central Asia continue to grow? The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) give markedly different answers. The contrast is sharpest in Kyrgyzstan, where the EDB expects another year of double-digit growth, while the IMF sees a much more pronounced slowdown. Both institutions are looking at the same countries and have access to broadly the same set of macroeconomic data. Their forecasts, however, reflect different assessments of how much of Central Asia’s recent momentum can be sustained. The EDB expects strong investment to keep growth high, while the IMF is more cautious about how long the recent pace of expansion can continue. The EDB is itself a regional development institution. It was established by Russia and Kazakhstan in 2006, with Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan later becoming shareholders. Uzbekistan joined the bank in 2025. The EDB is headquartered in Almaty. The comparison covers the four Central Asian states that are EDB members; Turkmenistan is not included. Its latest forecast for Central Asia is optimistic. In 2026, the EDB expects growth of 10.2% in Kyrgyzstan, 8.3% in Tajikistan, 7.9% in Uzbekistan, and 5.5% in Kazakhstan. The region’s economy as a whole is expected to grow by more than 6.5%, with its combined GDP exceeding $600 billion for the first time. The IMF gives lower figures. Its latest available country projections put 2026 growth at 4.6% for Kazakhstan, 6.8% for Uzbekistan, 6.1% for Kyrgyzstan, and 6.0% for Tajikistan. These projections were published at different times rather than as a single set of four country forecasts. The largest gap is in Kyrgyzstan, where the forecasts differ by 4.1 percentage points, but there are nevertheless modest percentage point gaps between the forecasts for Tajikistan (2.3), Uzbekistan (1.1), and Kazakhstan (0.9). These differences are large enough to raise the question: why the difference in expectations? Part of the answer lies in how the institutions assess the effect of a more uncertain global economy. The IMF expects the world economy to grow by 3% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027. Its July update said the conflict in the Middle East was weighing particularly heavily on energy importers and warned that renewed conflict or financial-market disruption could weaken the outlook. For the four countries, this means different things. Kazakhstan exports oil and benefits from high prices, although it also depends on the condition of export routes and external demand. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan import a significant share of their fuel, while their economies are closely linked to migrant remittances. Uzbekistan has a larger domestic market and its own resource base. Kazakhstan illustrates the logic of the IMF forecast particularly well. Its GDP grew by 6.5% in 2025, one of its strongest performances in recent years. The Fund does not expect that surge to be repeated. Oil production is expected to stabilize after last year’s increase, with growth slowing to 4.6% in 2026, according to the IMF forecast. This does not mean that the Fund attributes everything to oil. Domestic demand remains strong,...

Middle Corridor

Central Asia and Azerbaijan Extend Cooperation Across the Caspian

Central Asia’s presidential forum now spans both shores of the Caspian. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan anchor the principal Caspian crossing at the center of the Middle Corridor, the rail-and-sea network linking Central Asia to European markets through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye. Azerbaijan’s full participation brings the corridor’s eastern and western Caspian gateways into the same regular political setting. The six governments can use it to coordinate the transport, energy, digital, and investment links already developing across the Caspian, even though Georgia and Türkiye remain essential to the route’s westward operation. On July 31, 2026, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan signed the Cholpon-Ata Declaration at an informal Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan in Kyrgyzstan. The Declaration gave formal political expression to cooperation that had already been developing. Official accounts said the leaders emphasized expanded regional cooperation, including trade, transport and logistics, and energy. The full text has not been released, so those priorities come from official accounts rather than the declaration itself. Proposed by Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2017 and first convened in Astana in March 2018, the Consultative Meetings brought together the five Central Asian states in an informal presidential format. They expanded in November 2025 with Azerbaijan’s admission as a full-fledged participant, while retaining their consultative character. Azerbaijan attended in 2023 and 2024 as a guest; Cholpon-Ata was its first informal meeting in the new capacity. Official documents continue to call the format “Central Asia and Azerbaijan.” C6 is analytical shorthand for the enlargement, not the name of a new bloc or formal organization. Azerbaijan’s admission follows several years of practical cooperation. At a ministerial meeting in Aktau on November 25, 2022, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye signed a 2022–2027 roadmap for the simultaneous elimination of bottlenecks and development of the Middle Corridor. At its 2023 Baku summit, the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) adopted a digitalization roadmap and established a multi-partner trust fund, followed by work on digital data exchange and port-to-port cooperation. The transport roadmap includes Georgia and Türkiye, while SPECA also includes Afghanistan; neither is institutionally identical to C6. The enlarged format gives the six governments a regular political setting in which to coordinate existing transport, digital, and investment mechanisms. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route Association reports that freight through the seaports of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan reached 3.3 million tons in 2024, 20% above the 2023 level, while container traffic within the same scope rose 176% to 56,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Freight remains the principal basis of integration. Oil transit, prospective electricity links, and joint investment instruments are extending cooperation into adjacent sectors. Kazakhstan's use of the route for oil exports is also rising: according to KazMunayGas reports, Kazakhstani oil shipments from Aktau through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan route increased by 34% to 1.4 million tons in 2024. At COP29 in Baku on November 13, 2024, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan signed a strategic-partnership agreement on producing and transmitting green energy,...

Cremation Ban

Kyrgyzstan Reverses Cremation Policy as Japarov Signs Ban

In less than two and a half years, Kyrgyzstan has gone from recognizing cremation in law to banning it. On August 3, President Sadyr Japarov signed amendments prohibiting the cremation of human remains and removing the legal framework for the burial or storage of ashes. Law No. 139 will take effect on August 14. Under the new law, “cremation” no longer refers to the burning of a deceased person’s body. It is redefined as the sanitary burning of human organs or tissue resulting from medical activity, while a “crematorium” will mean the technical facility used for that purpose. Such facilities are expressly prohibited from being used for deceased people or aborted and stillborn fetuses. Unidentified and unclaimed bodies must instead be buried. Religious opposition was already part of the debate years before the 2024 law, with a 2018 AKIpress report quoting Baktiyar Toktogazy uulu, a fatwa specialist with the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan, as saying that cremating a Muslim body contradicts Islamic canons. The report also quoted Askerbek Aliyev, then head of Bishkek’s funeral service, who said earlier attempts to introduce cremation legislation had faced opposition from religious groups. Despite those objections, implementation was still moving ahead in October 2025, when Kudaibergen Bazarbaev, then-director of the State Agency for Civil Service and Local Self-Government, said cremation would be voluntary and available to people of other faiths or those who chose it. He added that existing burial traditions would remain unchanged and acknowledged that the country had no crematoria or funding for them. An official draft published that month proposed approving rules for operating crematoria. In December 2025, a Cabinet resolution on funeral-service pricing still included cremation followed by the issuing of an urn among regulated services. By March 2026, however, the State Agency was proposing to suspend the 2024 law’s provision allowing crematoria until January 1, 2040, citing a lack of infrastructure and financing. The agency also said environmental requirements and socio-cultural questions remained unresolved. Religious concerns entered the parliamentary debate directly in June, when MP Nurzhamal Torobekova asked whether citizens’ views and religious customs had been taken into account. A State Agency official replied that cremation had been conceived as a service rather than a requirement, citing foreigners whose customs include the practice. The committee subsequently approved the proposed delay in its second reading. The version Japarov signed went substantially further, removing human cremation and provisions governing ashes from the law rather than postponing their implementation. The stated purpose is to distinguish funeral activity from the sanitary handling of biological material, but neither that explanation nor the law says why the proposed moratorium ultimately became a ban. The change also puts Kyrgyzstan on a different course from neighboring Kazakhstan. Almaty has opened the country’s first crematorium, where cremation is offered as a voluntary alternative to burial.

Succession

The Tradition of Power – Why Political Succession in Central Asia Follows Its Own Rules

In January 2027, Kyrgyzstan will hold a presidential election, an event that is anything but routine for the Central Asian republic. Over the past three decades, political crises, often surrounding disputed elections, have repeatedly ended in the removal of presidents. Kyrgyzstan remains an outlier in the region, although it, too, has gradually been moving towards a political model that has long become the norm across the rest of Central Asia. This year marks 35 years since the Soviet republics embarked on independent political lives following the collapse of the USSR. Yet many of the mechanisms governing the transfer of supreme power, shaped during the Soviet era, continue to define politics across the independent states. In Central Asia, three decades of independence have produced a distinctive model of political succession. The final years of the Soviet Union became known as the era of the so-called "gun-carriage race." As one ageing General Secretary after another passed away, an unwritten rule appeared to emerge: the official who chaired the state funeral commission for the deceased leader often became his successor. A remarkably similar pattern later emerged in Central Asia – first in Turkmenistan, then in Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan's first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, died in December 2006. The state funeral commission was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who simultaneously became acting president. It was during those funeral ceremonies that the wider public was introduced for the first time to the family of Turkmenbashi. Under the constitution, parliamentary speaker Ovezgeldy Atayev should have assumed the presidency. Instead, he was stripped of immunity and arrested, clearing the way for Berdimuhamedov to take the acting presidency. After assuming the presidency in 2007, Berdimuhamedov gradually abandoned the more eccentric elements of his predecessor's personality cult while building a political system centered on his own leadership. If Niyazov styled himself Turkmenbashi – Leader of All Turkmens – his successor adopted the title Arkadag, or Protector of the Nation. In February 2022, Berdimuhamedov unexpectedly announced that he would step down following an early presidential election scheduled for March 12. He explained the decision by saying it was time to "give the younger generation an opportunity to govern the country." Few doubted that he was referring to his son Serdar Berdimuhamedov, who by then had already occupied most of the key positions within the state hierarchy. That is precisely what happened. Serdar Berdimuhamedov became president, while his father moved to the chairmanship of the Halk Maslahaty, retaining the title of National Leader of the Turkmen People. Uzbekistan followed a similar pattern, although under different circumstances. Islam Karimov built a highly centralized presidential system that left virtually no room for political competition. This applied not only to political opponents, but also to those closest to the president. His eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, was placed under house arrest while her father was still alive. Following his death, she was convicted and remains imprisoned in Uzbekistan. When Karimov died in September 2016, reports of his death circulated for several days...