It is hard to find a better description for the current state of the politics of the country than a "wilderness".

Longstanding, and occasionally fierce, battles between the government and the opposition has created the clear existence of a political space. It seemed that it had some political parties, people calling themselves politicians and sincerely believing it, and the configuration of a formal distribution of authorities from one political structure changed for another.

However, all this time power "lived" in an absolutely different place following different rules from those written in the Constitution and laws.

The authorities did not reside in the House of the Government or in the family of the President; although it seemed that it was the very place where decisions were made. In reality, power was in the hands of the nation, and concentrated in retaining from old times an understanding by the people that there should be some substance, as a rule, of a personified super-power with wisdom and justice. In other words, power had more of a holy than a social perception. Its "Constitution" was a belief in a good president and his just decisions. Its laws were assertions that the President was a father of the nation and that he should make the lives of the people better.

The interests of social groups that actually create the energy of political ideas and actions were not articulated either in political action or with expert reflection. Visually speaking, the "nation" did not know what it wanted, claiming things to the authorities, which was no more than a list of everyday deficits and a nostalgia over the past social pattern.

And the nation as it is did not exist. There were Southerners, Northerners, representatives of clans, democrats, pensioners, small cross-country traders and many other types of people that have never perceived themselves as part of a Kyrgyz nation (although there were some trying to present themselves as the Kyrgyz public).

Of course, there were some efforts at national identification. Discussions about a title for the country, its language and whether ethnicity should be written in the Passport, disputes over the nation or nations we are dealing with in Kyrgyzstan, attempts at the refurbishment of Tengriniasm as the religion of the Kyrgyz people; movements against border agreements and against the HIPC program membership - things that all sounded like a distant echo of the national spirit.

However, in these cases as well as in all others, the Kyrgyz Nation stood out in the historical context. In regards to the present time, it continues to be a "phantom" or an idiom that only existed in political discussions and the poetic imagination.

Here it is worth stating that there are two main ways of forming a nation.

The fastest one is its identification through tragic conditions of a national foreign threat. There was only one such example in the last century, in the year - 1916. One should not pretend that 1916 did not exist nor should one ignore the enormous historical meaning of this event for the destiny of the Kyrgyz people. This was one of several events in the history of the Kyrgyz people that allowed the preservation of Kyrgyz identity. Now there is nothing more but to be sorry that the October revolution stopped this process of replacing the focus of self-identification, while the terror of the 30's destroyed all of those that used to nurture any idea of Kyrgyz identity.

The second way of shaping identity is sub-ethnical, and more widely, sub-stratum assimilation. It is only possible if two important processes exist: formal stratification of society and the emergence of a publicly significant vision of the future. By this scenario, let's say what the majority of European nations and America called the "Soviet people," was formed.

This opportunity only opened up for us after a failure to find an identity during the fifteen years that the state reached the understanding of the need to choose an individual path for development. But even that has opened up only as an opportunity rather than a reality. In other words, we may become a Kyrgyz nation or we may not become one if we fail to unite everyone who identifies themselves with this country around a common picture of the future. But even if we do understand and agree on what we want, we will still need time to shape a new structure of society in compliance with the chosen development model.

It is also clear that politics will only appear by the time the interests of those new groups built up by the development model are formed, recognized and perceived as a priority in the public communication process.

That has not happened up until now. Therefore, there is neither politics nor Kyrgyz politicians in the country. Current political parties are phantoms created by post-soviet effects. There was nostalgia for socialist times and so there have arisen socialist and communistic parties. There was protest against Soviet authoritarianism - here there has arisen the Democrats. There was discontent with ‘Russification' - here nationalist parties form. There was a habit to live by instruction from above - here you have the government party. And so on.

None of the existing, and unfortunately still existant, "political forces" do not have either the genesis or the nature adherent to a Kyrgyz State or a Kyrgyz nation. The political phenomena common to the true Kyrgyz Nation currently reveals itself only in the province of everyday life.

Therefore, in regards to the history of the Kyrgyz nation and the Kyrgyz state, everything that has been happening up until now in a quasi-political space, and everything that the old opposition and human rights activists are sorry about, has no significance whatsoever. These all are phantom pains. It is a pity that the people from the "I don't believe!" youth movement look only in one direction. They should not trust those who are encouraging them either. I do not believe that these forces are capable of fostering the development of the country because all of them are working from the past and not towards the future.

That is the present concept of the political picture. President Bakiev did a favor for Kyrgyz politics by heaving the political ghosts of the past overboard. Although, not all of them, and that is the incompleteness of his political project.

Not only that, of course. The existence of the government party in the format it exists now, or moreover in its current surroundings, is not capable of creating political illusions even on the seventh floor of the White House. Thus, it needs to take one more important step by letting a real opposition into the political arena.

We should start from the existence of political forces capable of shaping and promoting alternate projects for development, as well as acting as an opposition to the government in its actions, is a mandatory condition and guarantee for state development.

Current political groups and leaders and the "old opposition" are not capable of performing this role for a number of reasons.

That is mainly because they do not have a long-term ideology, from the state development point of view, nor a platform or strategy.

In their majority, these groups are built upon socialist or national-socialist ideas that are good for either rich or extremely poor societies but are absolutely inapplicable, and even dangerous, for developing and transit societies: Especially if the transition is meant to shift from socialism towards a liberal society with a market economy, and from a closed rural country to a global, open society.

Apart from rare exceptions like the group represented by Dastan Sarygulov, all other opposition movements were founded as a protest opposition oriented only on reacting against actions (mistakes) of the authorities without providing their own initiatives. Therefore, they cannot leave the narrow circle of the format of the protest-type of opposition (demonstrations, hunger strikes, picketts, etc) that do not have a positive public effect.

Besides, the current opposition groups mostly include political figures of the old type, coming from an early democracy-building epoch and who are incapable of changing their mindset, values and fixed attitudes towards other politicians, including those in power now. They compete for power without projects for future development and rather go by the simple logic of "Why others and not them?" Stereotypes of the old political mindset are so strong that they repeat the same words and actions again and again despite having said and done that in the past and having been defeated; in other words they do not have self-reflection. These are systematised people that are not used to thinking and changing their approaches and solutions all the time. They are used to acting within a system defined once and forever.

Probably the most important detail is an absolutely unsupported opposition that has no social stratum standing behind it. They claim to protect the interests of an abstract "nation", in other words the interests of no one but themselves. Therefore, their political force immediately ends when they are not present themselves. They can only come to demonstrations theselves, while others come for money. They do not protect the interests of the poor because they are rich and they do not protect the interests of the rich because they want to seize and share. They do not protect the interests of the Kyrgyz since they do not know who they are and they do not represent the interests of other ethnic groups because they cannot tell the difference between patriotism and nationalism. They do not represent anyone at all.

One doesn't need to be a Solomon, or even a politician, to understand that there are concrete requirements for any political force that should now be opposing, and later be replacing, the current government.

The first requirement is an ability to replace the current government and do it in way that ensures development rather than the degradation of the state.

The ability to oppose and the ability to replace the government foresees the following:

- The existence of an alternative, stronger and more attractive vision of the country's future;
- The availability of an "active future". The Core of the party should be made up of people for whom the future is not an abstract vision but their own reality. As a rule, these are young people or people with a strong motivation for changing their state. Almost all current "opposition" leaders are satisfied and happy with their life since their "future" has already successfully happened;
- The presence of real social support. Here social support should not be bemused by the crowded membership of the party itself. The party may exist without wide-scale membership;
- The existence of a strategy of actions including a strategy of coming to power; and equipped with intellectual, organizational, financial and other resources including an organization capable of implementing this strategy.

In regards to state development interests, the foundation of the ideological outline of a new opposition and its platform should be built around three ideas: liberalism, nationalism and dignified power.

We are not talking about the traditional liberalism of the West and America built exceptionally on individualism and formal legislature strictly regulating social relations.

We need Kyrgyz liberalism. But at first, we should understand what that means. As strange as it may sound, Kyrgyz society with a liberal nature and an ancient liberal history has very few liberals in the country. It is even worse that the majority of them have read about liberalism in works of Western philosophers and/or build liberalism in the Western style, often using Western money. Living by such liberal principles and rules is the same as thinking that by calling Parliament the Jogorku Kenesh is enough to get a Kyrgyz democracy.

Kyrgyz liberalism has another systematic nature. It is derived from the system of relations of the human being with nature, the community and society. Here a person is free as water choosing its way. Only people from "Tenir Ordo" think this way about the Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz society.

I strongly believe that simple historical reconstruction is not as adequateas many Kyrgyz ideologists think. The ideas and principles of Kyrgyz liberalism, as well as social norms and practice, should be rooted not to the history or the past but be developed on the basis of a new social and cultural project for the country. It is obvious that it will involve some national traditions as well as modern liberal models, but will not be their repetition but rather their modernization,

For the same reasons we do not need a traditional nationalism evolved from the history of the nation and conventional components of its culture.

We need a modern Kyrgyz nationalism defining how the Kyrgyz can live, survive and succeed in the modern world. Kyrgyz nationalism should cure us of an inferiority complex, the small nation complex and provincialism. It will be founded upon an idea of a "big Kyrgyzstan" and the Kyrgyz as a nation of the world, as modern nomads easily mastering space, technologies and ideas.

We need a government capable of ensuring the development of the nation; a dignified power. The Kyrgyz people should learn to manage themselves as a nation as well as their future. It is important to find a style of public management suitable to the Kyrgyz people. It is also vital to comprehend such phenomena as Kyrgyz management (similar to Chinese, Japanese and other managements).

All these tasks should be resolved by a new political force presenting them to a society as a new projection of the Kyrgyz future, or as a Kyrgyz projection of the future.

This could be done by the government as well, but it is not doing it and it wil soon cross that line where they will never be able to do it.

So it will be done by the opposition. The new Kyrgyz opposition.

Valentine Bogatyryov, IPP expert, Coordinator of Analytica Consortium  "Perspective"