Last week, a group of students staged protests against HIPC in front of the World Bank’s office in Bishkek. Protestors threw eggs at the World Bank’s building and burned a scarecrow symbolizing the HIPC. On December 12, a group of protestors gathered in front of the Parliament building in Bishkek and burned another scarecrow.

The HIPC’s most stubborn opponents associate the initiative with Western hegemony over Kyrgyzstan’s economic and political domains. HIPC, according to them, will make Kyrgyzstan less attractive for foreign investors and undermine its domestic and international sovereignty in the still early days of its independence. The discussion over HIPC is, thus, often tainted with nationalist undertones, as opposed to being based on economic calculations. With that, few people and politicians in Kyrgyzstan have a thorough understanding about what HIPC entails and what are its conditions. The debate rarely incorporates economic indicators.

The fact that the HIPC’s member list includes the poorest countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and that Kyrgyzstan will be the only CIS country to join it, represents a powerful argument against the initiative. As Maksat Kobonbayev, a Kyrgyz financial expert, notes, if HIPC had a different name, the psychological factor would be less important in the decision to join the initiative. Politicians speaking against HIPC often play on nationalist feelings to promote their own arguments.

As Akipress reports, at the December 12 meeting between World Bank and IMF representatives with the Kyrgyz government, HIPC’s main goals in Kyrgyzstan were discussed. They include four main aspects: designing an economic development strategy; auditing national finances and public administration; carrying out reforms in the social sector; privatizing and reforming the energy sector.

Reforming the energy sector is arguably the most controversial aspect of the initiative. Kyrgyzstan’s energy sector, representing a vital part of the national economy, is also a significant source of corruption. According to various estimates, the sector’s top executives annually pocket tens of millions of dollars. Corruption in the energy sector became more widespread under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s leadership.

Today, Kyrgyzstan’s external debt comprises roughly 125 percent of its GDP. In March 2005, days before former President Askar Akayev’s regime was toppled, the Paris Club of Creditors wrote off $555 million of Kyrgyzstan’s debt. However, this did not contribute to economic recovery. Eighteen months after the collapse of Akayev’s regime, Kyrgyzstan’s economy is still a murky picture. It is clear that under Bakiyev’s leadership, no viable economic programs were designed to reduce poverty and attract international investors.

Some Kyrgyz are afraid that domestic funds released thanks to the HIPC will not be spent on alleviating poverty, but will add up to the existing corruption. In effect, although international financial institutions will have a stronger leverage over the country’s domestic politics, a great deal of the HIPC’s successfulness depends on local initiative. Kyrgyz political elites’ motivation to seize the opportunity and extract maximum benefits from the initiative will predetermine whether it will contribute to long-term economic recovery or end in a failure. Importantly, as one Kyrgyz financial expert notes, HIPC is by no means a way to prosperity but rather offers a possibility to sustainable economic recovery.

Another Kyrgyz expert, Murad Omoev, says that as any other national program, the HIPC should be based on a consensus between all power branches. Local civil society and mass media outlets must be actively involved in every stage of the HIPC’s implementation.

Ironically, in Kyrgyzstan today, slogans directed against Western influence are regarded as manifestation of genuine patriotism. By contrast, criticism of the Kremlin’s policies or the dominating role of the Russian language in the country is treated as outbreaks of nationalism. A plethora of Russian mass media outlets in Kyrgyzstan influence popular attitudes towards both the U.S and the Kremlin. The Kyrgyz public mostly receives news about world affairs from pro-Kremlin sources such as TV channels ORT and RTR, or the newspaper Komsomol’skaya pravda.

Although some representatives of the Kyrgyz civil society and government fiercely oppose joining the HIPC because of risking falling under Western influence, little consideration is given to the fact the new constitution adopted last month was written primarily in the Russian, not the Kyrgyz, language.