BACKGROUND: The violent overthrow of the previous regime that took place on March 24, 2005 resulted in a dangerous power vacuum. The hopeful presidential candidate Kurmanbek Bakiev, who for the moment assumed the double roles of the acting president and the acting prime minister, promised to continue the revolutionary momentum. In particular, Bakiev called for the immediate privatization of state mass media. He went so far as to state several times that in the future, all newspapers except one, containing laws and government decrees, will be privately owned. Bakiev’s optimistic remarks coincided with the general public mood of high hopes for better, and a more just and democratic future for the country. Representatives of civil society and independent mass media were especially enthusiastic about the acting president’s proposals. Both Bakiev and interested observers repeated in unison that mass media reform is a guarantee of freedom of the speech and a building block of a competitive media market in Kyrgyzstan. It was the electoral campaign that first indicated the lack of real reform commitment. Moreover, heads of state media outlets were the ones to ask for privatization to be put on hold. In a joint appeal to the government, they argued that, once privatized, mass media will be unable to survive competition, while the state will lose an instrument of establishing dialogue with the population, in particular concerning the progress of political, economic, and social reform in the country. In its turn, Bakiev’s government reverted to the use of administrative resources in the presidential election campaign. With a majority of media outlets at Bakiev’s side and regional administrations courting the most probable candidate, the result of the presidential election was self-evident. International observers preferred to ignore the fact that the amount of coverage of the elections was heavily skewed in favor of the leading candidate. The most obvious reason is the fear of more popular protests. In the meantime, the post-election developments do not suggest that new authorities plan to stick to the earlier promise of reform. Recently, it was announced that KNTRK, the state television channel and the only channel in the country with 90% coverage, will not be granted public status. Another disturbing signal is that the government continues to impose subscription to official newspapers on the population. All these signs cause increasing amount of criticism on the part of civil society, independent mass media, and the population at large.

IMPLICATIONS: A troubling sign for the future of democracy in Kyrgyzstan is the sudden metamorphosis of many opponents of the former regime into staunch loyalists of the current government. The Acting Deputy Prime Minister Adakhan Madumarov, who criticized former president Akayev for controlling official mass media in his own interests, now employs the same methods claiming that it is a matter of state security. The leading journalist of the MSN (Moia Stolitsa—Novosti) newspaper Rina Prizhivoit also went from being a voice of revolutionary change into a passionate supporter of the official government’s line, attacking everyone with a different point of view as pro-Akayev (a label that is equivalent today to being a disloyal citizen). Justifying their actions by a desire to protect the gains of the revolution and avoid public protests, former opposition journalists today stay away from raising difficult questions. What is worse, they do not seem to tolerate any critical voices challenging the new administration. Heads of state mass media are uneasy with the prospect of privatization. After losing state support that is critical in guaranteeing stable subscription numbers, they will find themselves unpopular and uncompetitive in the media market. Therefore, both state mass media and the government share an interest in preserving the status quo, which is a bad omen for the reform program. Many independent journalists and observers have come to the conclusion that today in Kyrgyzstan there is less freedom of the speech than during Akaev. This aversion to greater freedom of speech was corroborated after the elections when the government announced that KNTRK would not become public. Instead, the government diverted public attention to public television, which supposedly will be established on the basis of the southern television channel “Osh-3000.” It is widely agreed that “Osh-3000” is unlikely to become a nation-wide public channel, not only because its technical base is lacking, but most importantly, because the channel covers only the southern region of the country. Therefore, it seems more likely that the government is simply diverting attention from the lack of real reform by launching secondary projects, which, however, are clearly unviable by default. It must be added that there is no excuse for avoiding real reform for economic reasons, because international donors have been more than generous in their offers for the cause of reforming the Kyrgyz mass media. The government and state mass media representatives alike have brushed away these offers and instead resorted to methods of controlling mass media, methods that are so familiar to Kyrgyz people.

CONCLUSIONS: Widely seen as a voice of the democratic revolution, the new government in Kyrgyzstan easily passed the test of public popularity. However, challenges that lie ahead will require considerably more than just populist promises. So far, unfortunately, the electoral campaign and the post-election developments indicate that the new regime is wary of implementing real democratic reforms, most importantly the reform of mass media. Moreover, the regime has found allies in former opposition journalists who were responsible for championing the Bakiev candidacy during the revolution as well as during the presidential elections. Close allies of the present regime, state and private pro-government mass media act to effectively suppress freedom of the press by attacking independent journalists and their dissenting views, labeling them as pro-Akaev and unpatriotic. At the same time, they themselves avoid contentious issues and invariably take the government’s side. In this context, when independence of mass media—one of the critical components of democracy—is being compromised, the overall commitment of the Bakiev government to further democratic development comes under serious question.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Anisa Borubaeva is a Fulbright Scholar with the Central Asia Caucasus Institute, on leave from her positions as Vice-Chair, Center of Parliamentarism and Legislation of the Kyrgyz Parliament and Professor in the Journalism Department of the Institute of Eastern Languages and cultures of Ishenaly Arabaev University.