BACKGROUND: Despite significant headway in macroeconomic reform, none of the countries of Central Asia has solved the problem of establishing an orderly and legitimate procedure for the transfer of power. As the communist-era leadership begins to age and the political dynamics associated with market economies begin to reshape the political landscape of Central Asia, political succession has become the defining issue in Central Asian contemporary political affairs. More than a decade after the passing of communism, the countries of Central Asia continue to be ruled by the leaders of the pre-independence communist period. Each country has a presidential system, endowing the head of state with exceptionally broad powers and making the authority of the leader the single most important aspect of political life. The concentration of power in the hands of the president means that the system itself is identified with the leader. Leadership changes therefore likely mean changes in the nature of the system itself. The present Central Asian political leaders all were either the highest state officials at the time of the Soviet collapse or took power shortly afterward. The constitutions adopted in all the Central Asian states after independence described specified terms of office with term limits for the post of president. All the Central Asian states have held regular elections, but none of these presidential elections could be described as free and fair. In all the Central Asian states, through a variety of mechanisms, the presidents have extended their mandates. In Turkmenistan, term limits were altogether dispensed with as the Turkmen parliament amended the constitution to allow for the president to be named “president for life.” In Kazakhstan, the country’s high court interpreted the 1995 Constitution to mean that previous service of the president was no longer to be counted as applying to the term of office. Hence president Nursultan Nazarbaev, serving since 1990, was elected in 1999 to a first term of office. But while the presidents have managed to stay in office in the 13 years of independence, the political currents in all the countries have continued to flow. Similar kinds of political changes undermined the Soviet-era leadership in Georgia and Ukraine. In Georgia, Eduard Shevardnaze’s government assumed it would be able to manipulate elections in fall 2003. When observers challenged differences between the reported election returns and independent election exit polls, a national scandal soon escalated into a political crisis that brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power as President of Georgia in January 2004. In Ukraine the outgoing government of Leonid Kuchma manipulated elections to assure a friendly successor. Massive demonstrations forced a political crisis that was resolved with a new election that handed power to the challenger, Viktor Yushenko. The Russian language press, which continues to be the main source of information in the Central Asian states, at first depicted the Rose Revolution as a tragic accident in which Russia’s historical influence in the Caucasus was supplanted by American influence. Later the Russian language press developed an interpretation that the Revolution had been manipulated through financing from George Soros to undermine the Shevardnazde government and establish a pro-American government. The Russian language press was much more aggressive in interpreting Ukraine’s Orange Revolution as a case of western subversion intended to split Ukraine from Russia. The reverberations in Central Asia were fairly swift. In spring 2004 the Soros Foundation in Uzbekistan was denied registration by the Uzbek Ministry of Justice and ceased operation. In December 2004, the Soros Foundation in Kazakhstan was formally charged with criminal violations of tax law. Questions were raised whether the Foundation would be able to continue operations.

IMPLICATIONS: Avoiding anything similar to Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” and Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in Central Asia is now a primary goal of Central Asian political leaders. Widespread public outcries in Central Asia are seen by the political leadership as potentially leading to uncontrollable consequences. Elections are typically the political instrument for channeling public participation. But none of the Central Asian political leaders has confidence in elections to promote the agenda of bringing about peaceful, progressive secular political change in the region. Consequently, the electoral process in the all the states is managed by the government to achieve state goals rather than to reflect the will of the public. Parliamentary elections were held in September 2004 in Kazakhstan and in December 2004 in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but these elections were far from free and fair. Governments took extensive steps to legitimize the elections through engaging a stable of compliant election observers who dutifully proclaimed the elections to be fair and authoritative. This was seen as a way of calling into question the critical assessments of such international organizations as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that routinely conducts election observation. But such stratagems have only limited utility. In the relatively most open and democratic of the Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, independent election observers from Russia pronounced the September parliamentary elections to be legitimate only to be embarrassed a short time later by the resignation of Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, the Speaker of the Kazakhstan parliament. Tuyakbai, one of the country’s leading politicians a high official in the dominant political party, Otan, announced his resignation on October 18, 2004, denouncing “crude violations” of electoral process and deliberate falsification by the government of the election figures. From the point of view of the political leadership, even more important than controlling the outcome of the elections is controlling how the future leaders deal with the legacy of the past. This is not just a question of historical legacy but a much more practical question of immunity from future prosecution. For instance, Uzbek President Islam Karimov has taken formal steps toward an exit strategy. On April 25, 2003, the Uzbek parliament adopted legislation giving former presidents immunity from prosecution for acts done in an official capacity, including freedom from being required to testify and freedom from being searched. The legislation is also intended to guarantee the president and members of his family security protection for life.

CONCLUSIONS: The failure of the governments to solve the succession problem presents the single most serious threat to political stability in Central Asia today. Political succession may be delayed for a period but a change of leadership is ultimately inevitable. The longer the adoption of an orderly procedure for political succession is postponed, the more likely the succession will involve open conflict. Once one of the Central Asian leaders leaves office, either from natural causes or political upheaval, the resulting shock waves could reverberate throughout the region. The political processes of the Central Asian countries are characterized by a relatively small number of closely knit, often closely related decision makers working in the context of a political culture that rewards conformity and personal loyalty. In Central Asia these cultural factors are particularly important because the formal decision making rules are often less significant than informal rules. As a consequence, political succession in these countries is apt to be decided outside of a competitive democratic process.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Gregory Gleason is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of New Mexico.