“Japarov’s our Trump”, a friend quipped as we discussed the current political situation at a crowded queer party in Bishkek, the country’s capital. This comparison between Sadyr Japarov - the former-convict-turned interim PM and president of Kyrgyzstan - and the outgoing billionaire president of the US may strike some as an exaggeration. But it allows us to approach the political turmoil that followed Kyrgyzstan’s October 2020 parliamentary elections in the frame of global political trends, rather than tired narratives of clans, the country’s north-south divide or the allegedly “nomadic mentality” often employed to make sense of Kyrgyz politics.
In a recently published book to mark the 150 anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birth, French philosopher Alain Badiou - one of the contributors, along with yours truly - refers to the Bolshevik leader as “the founder of the modern meaning of the word ‘politics’”. Badiou suggests that it was Lenin who formulated our understanding of politics as a confrontational and antagonistic articulation of radically transformative political demands. In other words, Lenin shifted our perception of politics from the technocratic process of managing public affairs, to the conflictual discussion of politics itself. Paradoxically, in our neoliberal era, it is the far right that has become the most outspoken proponent across the globe of this Leninist idea of politics as uncompromising and confrontational.
This definitely applies to Sadyr Japarov, whose deliberate anti-establishment appeal and nationalist populist rhetoric on their own make the comparison with Trump legitimate in the context of Kyrgyzstan. It has become commonplace among political analysts to characterise the latest Kyrgyz parliament as one of the most incompetent since independence, given the unprecedented number of oligarchs and their associates sitting in the legislative body. In the aftermath of October’s election, Japarov skilfully manipulated people’s rage against the political elites largely associated with a parliament marred by corruption and scandals. His criminal record and extravagant political behaviour only intensified his anti-establishment appeal, shrouding him in the aura of a political martyr.
