There is trouble at the top of the mountainous Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan after a falling-out between the authoritarian president and his chief enforcer.
‘In this life, only death can separate us’
Kyrgyzstan’s president Sadyr Japarov and his security chief Kamchybek Tashiev were known for years as “eki dos” (two friends) as they ran the Central Asian republic in an increasingly authoritarian tandem.
But Tashiev now faces charges of plotting a coup to overthrow the president, while he and his family face the kind of scrutiny from anti-corruption investigators the former security chief previously turned on his adversaries.
The trial will be held behind closed doors with reporting banned and although he has not yet been detained, Tashiev could face up to 20 years in prison.
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It is the latest turn in a political and personal drama that saw Japarov and Tashiev effectively share power after an uprising in 2020 until the president fired the security chief in February.
Two and a half times the size of Ireland with a population of 7.5 million, Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country in Central Asia with China to the east, Tajikistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west and Kazakhstan to the north. Since gaining independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has seen three popular revolutions, in 2005, 2010 and 2020.
Japarov is from the north of the country and Tashiev from the south and their partnership brought together rival elites with the promise of restoring stability and improving the economy. The economy has grown by an average of 9 per cent a year since Japarov came to power and he has overseen ambitious infrastructure projects and the nationalisation of the Kumtor Gold Mine.
But Japarov has also concentrated power around himself, shifting authority from parliament to the presidency, cracking down on civil society and crushing independent media. This has seen journalists arrested, newsrooms dismantled and the investigative news site Kloop designated as an extremist outlet.
The national security apparatus expanded under Tashiev, with powers to shut down mobile communications and seize assets with little or no oversight. And although he prosecuted politicians and business figures for corruption, the process itself facilitated further corruption in the form of kusturizatsia, a term derived from the Kyrgyz word for vomiting.
This sees those found to have acted corruptly, whether by stealing from state funds or evading taxes, allowed to voluntarily pay compensation to avoid imprisonment. Often, they pay this compensation in cash and the same figures appear time and again to purge their offences by “vomiting” back such payments to the state.
Kyrgyzstan’s economic success under Japarov owes much to its role as a forwarding hub for goods avoiding sanctions imposed on Russia since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The EU last month banned some exports to Kyrgyzstan, saying there was a risk that they could ultimately reach Russia, and sanctioned a platform trading government-backed stablecoin.
Prosecutors have not published details of the charges against Tashiev but Kyrgyz media report they are linked to a public letter signed by 75 people suggesting that Japarov might be ineligible to seek another term as president next year. A few weeks before his sacking, Tashiev told a documentary that he remained devoted to Japarov and had no intention of unseating him.
“I can clearly say that our relationship is based on mutual understanding, and the plans of those who wish to divide us will not come to fruition. In this life, only death can separate us,” he said.
“If health and opportunity are on our side, I would like to continue working in this format until the end of my days.”
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