As a result of the elections on December 16, 2007 in Kyrgyzstan a parliament was formed that is new in shape and quality. Little time has passed since the start of its activity, but one can analyze and make some general conclusions. This paper is such an effort, and represents a brief analysis on how much the current Kyrgyz parliament corresponds to the classical views on parliament's development as an institute, what the roles are of the three parties in the Jogorku Kenesh, what to expect in the future, and what can be done to improve its effectiveness.

The modern understanding of parliament has been formed under the influence of Western Europe's historical development and the works of well-known theorists such as J. Lock, S. Montesquieu, J.J.Rousseau, etc. The parliament according to the classic view is a state representative body, the major function of which is to exercise legislative power. Besides that, parliament is in charge of state fiscal issues, i.e. it needs to adopt a budget. The functions of parliament include controlling government to certain extent. Despite the roots of parliament's development going back to the history of Western Europe, it has been successfully adopted in other parts of the world, in countries which have accepted democracy and liberal values as the basis for advancement - Japan, South Korea, Costa-Rica, etc. By the end of the 20th century, Eastern European countries faced with the problem of choosing the way also paid particular attention to parliament as the main element of the state machine. All this allows us to say that without an effective parliament, it is impossible to build democracy successfully.

A parliament similar to other institutes of state power is extremely flexible and may take various forms depending on the specifics of a country and its historical development. It may be considered as the fundamental element of state governance or conversely, as a limitation in conducting the policy of a single person or a group of people. For example, V.I. Lenin was constantly critical of this institution and considered it as powerless talking, which aims at "swindling common people." It is obvious that such an approach was the result of extremely specific views on whatan effective state machine is, and what the waste of time and resources means, and how it may be harmful to the state.

In sovereign Kyrgyzstan, the approach to parliament as an institution has been always ambiguous. All the way from gaining independence, there is an open or latent struggle between the two major power institutes - parliament and president. It is enough to recall the "gold scandal" of early 90s, when the Jogorku Kenesh was dissolved, the Constitution was changed, and the first victory of president over parliament took place. Later, there were some serious and small victories, where the president succeeded. Generally, the presidential-parliament (mixed) form of governance, which is characteristic of almost all post-Soviet republics (including our country) basically gives all advantage to the president, and during any conflict with parliament, has a 100% chance of winning.

That is not to say that parliament has been always in opposition to the president. It is likely to be opposite; most parliamentarians have been constantly on the side of the president. However, the nature of parliament as such, its representative component (and sometimes populist part as well) made the Jogorku Kenesh to be a kind of filter - a brake on the unlimited power of the country leader. Moreover, the elective system compelled deputies to rely on the opinions of their voters, and sometimes use it as a shelter in case of danger.

It was a result of executive power activities, when it tried to discredit the legislative body. In the press (especially the official one) there were materials which constantly discredited parliament and its deputies, trying to form an image of them as vagabonds, people who only talk, corrupted and wasted the budget money, etc. In other words, the executive power and the highest country leaders treated the Jogorku Kenesh as their competitors, who created limits to their work, or as an instrument to pursue their own policies. It must be noted that most of the complaints addressed to parliamentarians were quite reasonable, which I will discuss later. However, one must understand that criticism of deputies is always one-sided, while there is no fair criticism addressed to the less transparent executive power. The shortcomings of parliament are the shortcomings of the whole state and have to be viewed in this complexity.

One may conclude, based on the above, that conditionally speaking, the "socialist" approach that is typical to followers of Marxism-Leninism has been developed in free and sovereign Kyrgyzstan. Parliament according to such an approach is viewed as an importunate but necessary addition to personalities or groups who shape real country politics.

The struggle between "president-parliament" has continued with the change of power in 2005. Here, the struggle was not about ideas, concepts or programs, but first of all, was about the re-distribution of competences and the formation of a qualitatively new system of three branches of power. As before, each side of the struggle was succeeding, but again, similar to the previous days, the president appeared stronger. The position of president is represented by a single person and strengthened by a number of authorities, in contrast with the large and less manageable parliament. The president has formed such a system, which meets his ideas and understanding of the organization of state power.

What do we have now?

Parliament is formed on a 100% proportionate system;

The government is formed by the parliament, but as practice shows, the president is the main actor in this process;

Parliament factions are formed in accordance with party bases. Here, each deputy is not free, but depends on his/her party (party management) as a result of the imperative mandate, which was introduced by the new Constitution;

Parliament has legislative functions;

Parliament has the right to exercise control over the executive power through expression of distrust;

Parliament has the right to control the budget by way of its approval.

Without analyzing in detail the constitutional norms, it is possible to make the conclusion that parliament has become party-based, and it formally represents a positive moment, since it gives an opportunity to form a truly nationwide and substantially representative body.

However, to make the formal opportunity real, it is necessary to follow a number of conditions.

The first. The role of parliament must be high. The situation when parliament formally has certain competencies, but factually (as a result of sophisticated constitutional norms) the dominating role is played by one branch of power, does not promote the actual development of parliamentarism. The key issue here is the resignation of government.

The second - a member of parliament must be free and ruled only by his conscience and law. The imperative mandate, introduced by the new Constitution, seriously levels the positive moment of Jogorku Kenesh's formation based on the party-list.

The third. Parliament must be formed on the basis of free and fair elections. Any elective system has its positive and negative sides, but if elections are run unfairly, one cannot talk about positive sides at all. Definitely, the history of different countries provides a great number of samples when the norms of election law were violated, elections falsified, etc. Such violations and falsification have been always characteristic to us. At the same time, the fact of legal violation in a legal state is an extreme situation as such, and its consequences are predictable. In an illegal state, the consequences may be different and unpredictable. Nowadays, the fundamental question in Kyrgyzstan is not who seriously violates the law or how. The major point is whether people agree to accept it or not. If voters accept violations, treat it as something unavoidable, then it will stay like that. It becomes normality. If election results are not accepted, then the legitimacy of parliament can be questioned with all subsequent ramifications.

How the new parliament has been formed

In fact, the results of recent elections are very ambiguous. According to the data of the CEC by April 19, 2007 (when 99.96% of votes were counted) the party "Ak-Jol" received 47%, "Ata-Meken" - 8.3%, the Communist party - 5.12%, SDPK - 5.05%. It is known that "Ata-Meken" failed because of not meeting the 0.5% threshold. There were many debates on this point. The question on fair or unfair counting remains open. Perhaps, it is even stranger to look at the distribution of mandates between the communists and social-democrats. I will repeat once again that communists received 5.12% while SDPK - 5.05%. At that, during the distribution of deputy mandates, communists gained 8 mandates, and SDPK obtained 11...

One may guess that the final counting of votes made some corrections, and the balance was changed. If it is like that, then in order to remove all kind of ideas of falsification, the CEC must have published the election results with corresponding numbers to each polling station. Moreover, it is required according to the law (see the Code on Elections, art. 75, 77, 48). However, it did not happen. Why? The question is open...

Several months after the elections showed that a significant part of the public did not consider the parliamentary elections as fair. On the other side, there are a quite significant number of voters who are ready to accept the election results. It is obvious that society is divided into those who are against them, and who are ready to recognize them.

The majority in the parliament

In any case, there is no other way except accepting the current composition of the Jogorku Kenesh as a political reality, at least in the current state of the country's development.

There are three factions in parliament - "Ak-Jol", Communists and SDPK, and each has its own problems and prospects.

It is absolutely definite that the parliament's policies are ultimately shaped by the party ‘Ak-Jol." The majority of mandates allowed to make any decision without considering other factions' votes, which we observed during the voting on "land issues with Kazakhstan," "privatization", etc.

There are at least several key moments that influence the sustainability of "Ak-Jol" as a political organization:

"Ak-Jol" while making a decision, must understand that it is fully responsible for a decision. The party may ignore other parliament factions, but it must consider public opinion. It is especially true for such painful questions as borders, privatization, etc. The decisions on these problems may have a long-lasting effect and a cumulative result; when all problems in the country will be the burden of a single party. When the day of political responsibility comes, each deputy will not be responsible in front of his/her voters or different state bodies. It is unlikely to happen, but it may happen that a number of "scapegoats" will be responsible for all. Any of the current party members can become such a "scapegoat..."

"Ak-Jol" is not a party of common-thinkers, united by common ideology or ideas; it is a group of people united by the principle of trust relations and informal connections. It is possible that such informal connections may in some cases be stronger than ideology, however, these informal connections may break quickly when political conjunctures change.

The activity of "Ak-Jol" is under the strong influence of president Bakiyev. When the president is powerful, it gives undisputable advantages to each party-member. However, when the president faces troubles, then the process of transformation into a different organization will start immediately. This happened to "Alga, Kyrgyzstan!"

The qualitative composition of "Ak-Jol" triggers lots of complaints from experts and analysts. It includes artists, sportsmen, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs; in other words, there are many who deal with politics for the first time, and moreover, deal with legislative activities; there are only a few professionals and it makes parliament weaker. According to experts, the quality of state bureaucracy (officials) and politicians (MPs) has a serious effect on the quality of state decisions. The more competent a specialist is, as usual, the more competent a decision is.

The party, despite the centralized system of decision-making is not monolithic. The major political decisions are made in accordance with the political situation, advice of the closest peers, political and economic reasoning. The same informal connections that constitute the basis presuppose a distribution in accordance with these informal characteristics that cannot be always predicted and are likely to change. Today there are a number of informal groups in "Ak-Jol," which to certain extent influence decision-making and struggle to gain influence with their leader. Analysts mention several groups, and the leaders are Elmira Ibraimova, Adahan Madumarov, etc.

Internal competition in "Ak-Jol" is the competition to have more power in the country and ultimately, a competition to be among the first groups who can influence President Bakiyev. Besides, such a competition supposes defining priorities in solving issues that has materialistic implication and may lead to gaining substantial dividends today or in the future.

Such a sub-division into groups within the party is quite conditional and anytime may change. The fragmentation within "Ak-Jol" (division into influence groups) is not something unusual; it is not sustainable and only proves the thesis on the constant struggle within and outside of any political organism.

Generally, the reasons behind fragmentation may be the struggle for political leadership, a desire to get access to material resources of the party, and in the case of success at elections, to state resources, ideological competition, etc.

Thus, "Ak-Jol" as a political party faces two fundamental tasks, and their solution will define a lot:

The party must identify with whom it goes together (which interests groups, parts of population, etc) and move away from informal towards formal principles of organization.

The party must define on behalf of what it has emerged as an organization, and which ideas it wants to develop.

By the way, these questions are equally urgent not only for "Ak-Jol" but to all other political organizations, since most of them are not in better condition than the president's party.

The opposition in the parliament

The current parliament has formal opposition. It is formal, because the way it was developed was not legal, but was "agreed." Irrespective to the position they take, two parliament factions, their condition mostly depends on the way of receiving mandates. It was mentioned above, that the main question is not about law violations, and acceptance or non-acceptance of election results by voters. There is no clear picture in the public regarding this point.

In large part it depends on the position of factions on "painful" questions, which have wide resonance in the public - privatization, "land issues," economic and social reforms, etc.

In this regard, both factions have not made mistakes, and skillfully use their positions as non-responsible parties, but are the same those who are critical.

The SDPK has a number of well-known and widely popularized politicians - R.Otumbaeva, B.Beshimov, I. Omurkulov, etc. They know how to conduct political struggle (including the ‘behind corridor' ones), they are good public speakers, actively use their rights to criticize the powerful. In the case of the correct organization of SDPK activities, it has the chance to gain political dividends as the parliamentary opposition, and in the future it may be successful.

However, the SDPL has a range of serious problems:

As mentioned previously, it is the "agreed" nature of their coming into the Jogorku Kenesh. In case of political upheavals, the SDPK risks being partially responsible for the situation in the country, as a party, which agreed to work in the current parliament. It may happen, even though there are few of them, and they cannot impact the voting on bills. Many things will depend on political trends and personalities, who will come to power by that time.

A leadership conflict is possible in the SDPK. A. Atambaev, the leader and the main motivating person in the party recently (after he resigned from the PM position) took an unclear position. It is not clear on which side he is, or whether he is still in politics.

Practice shows that by one's own will, no one leaves politics at such an age. Hence, the silence of Atambaev has a reason. At the same time, it is difficult to understand the reasoning behind Atambaev's behavior. For a politician to remain in the shadow for a while is like death. The public has started to associate the SDPK with other figures like B.Beshimov, I. Omurkulov, R.Otunbaeva. It is possible that one of them may become a party leader. Will it happen without pain?

The communist party is an organization which has a very simple position. It is the only party which can present itself as systematic. The ideology of communists is well-known and has its permanent adherents, especially among the older generation.

The peculiarity of the modern Kyrgyz communists is that they are followers of the respected A. Masaliev, and the party is led by his son. It is known that K.Bakiyev was advanced as opposition leader by A. Masaliev, which seems to compel Bakiyev to support his son. Moreover, K.Bakiyev may have sympathy with communist ideas as a result of his professional activities in the past. There may be a symbiosis of nostalgic notes and informal connections built on regional-family gratitude and mutual support.

No one is surprised by the fact that the communists could make it into parliament as a result of "agreed" and informal relations. They always get fewer complaints regarding the unfair and falsified elections. The situation was so obvious to the public and has accepted it as a natural state of affairs. The legitimacy of this party in parliament is of course problematic, but less than for the other two parties, if it is correct to raise such a question in general.

The communists feel comfortable to take the "winning" position resisting privatization and other issues. First of all, all know that their ideology is against private ownership, and secondly, no one compels them to vote otherwise. There is a "union of the mutually satisfied."

The communists have fewer problems than others, but there are still some:

The gradual loosening of systematic basis. The external form of the party is the same, but the substance changes. The old ideology needs to revision, but no one deals with it. It is possible to advance a bit at the expense of the old luggage, but it is not adequate in modern times, which becomes more and more obvious, even for the common people. The communists of Kyrgyzstan are undergoing the same things as Russian and other party brothers feel. They use the old slogans, but the nature of these people is different. They have privately owned units, material welfare and still remain communists, because it is still possible to use it as a political resource.

The chances of the party to remain in parliament are completely dependent on the favorable position of K. Bakiyev. In case of personality changes or their positions, everything may change. It is necessary to think about it now, and it is always the case.

What kind of prospects do parliamentary factions have?

The advantages and disadvantages of parliamentary factions become more visible and depend on the quality of party members' work. In this view, the work of the minority parties seems to be relatively correct. Both communists and social-democrats skillfully use the mistakes of "Ak-Jol." It is fortunate that there are always opportunities to gain points for formal opposition in the parliament.

The members of the party "Ak-Jol" are in a more difficult situation. There are many of them, they are different, but they decide less. The maneuvering space is small. It becomes especially obvious with the worsening social-economic situation in the country. Concerning the authorities, most of the public has a specific approach - the presumption of guilt. Whatever decision "Ak-Jol" makes, the public sees some hidden reasons to satisfy one's needs,, first of all, of the ruling elite (despite whether it is true in fact or not). Trying not to lose face, when one does not control the situation is an extremely difficult task, and as shown in practice, not all can achieve it. Even though there are such cases when certain party members owing to their talents can sustain their images in the p[public.

There is one problem that is common for the whole parliament - public doubts regarding its legitimacy. It is quite possible that the political situation will be favorable to the current Jogorku Kenesh and they will manage stay until the end of term, but the moral-political evaluation may significantly differ from the formal one, and one has to take it into account. The ambiguous evaluation of parliament's legitimacy negatively impacts the country's development by creating uncertainty and legal nihilism.

Where to move

Along with these problems there are problems of parliamentarism that are typical because of the common, institutional problems in the system, and hence, require the systematic solution.

As indicated above, parliament is the highest representative body, which provides for the democratic functioning of society. The concept of people's representation requires the following characteristics:

The people's representation is envisioned in the Constitution;

People as a source of sovereignty, entitles parliament to perform legislative power;

For this purpose, people elect their representatives to parliament;

MP is a representative of the whole nation, and not of his/her voters only, therefore, MP must not depend on voters, and must not be called back.

As noted by the well-known French constitutionalist, M. Prelo: "the elected person, who freely and directly creates the will of nation, has complete independence."

Which of the above characteristics is absent in our parliament? The forth one. The member of Jogorku Kenesh is not a representative of the whole nation because of his illiberal condition and legally formulated dependence on his/her party.

Yes, in the developed democracies, parties have monopolized the way to parliament and serve as effective election machines. At that, there is a widely adopted approach that a deputy is free in his expression. The party discipline is not a limitation for a deputy, but a "light" and symbolic ‘rope,' which can be easily removed. A deputy is disciplined not by the threat to be called back from the parliament, but a threat not to be included into the party list in the next elections.

Almost everywhere the imperative mandate is rejected. The deputy call back makes sense only in two-chamber parliaments, where one chamber controls the territorial representation. It is characteristic mostly to federal states.

Why has the imperative mandate been incorporated in our country? It is because it is useful and convenient for those who control the deputy corpus. What are the ramifications of it? In most parts, the representative function of parliament remains formal. In practice, the role of parliament is to legalize (approve) those decisions that were made in other power centers.

In most of developing countries, similar processes take place especially in Africa and Asia. Parliaments even when they are built in accordance with western models, in fact do not have power, and their role is to register those decisions that are already made. Here, the power division is formally stated in Constitutions, in practice it is not exercised because of the low cultural and legal level of the population.

There may be different approaches to evaluate the role and prospects of the Jogorku Kenesh: 1) do not recognize its legitimacy and reject cooperating with it; 2) to accept it as a reality and try to do something about it. Both approaches imply the necessity to reform the legislative body, to change the factual role in decision-making, to improve professionalism, to formalize relations from within and outside of the legislative body.

To change the role and place of parliament, one needs to understand not only the functional role, but also to analyze the personal interests of those citizens who come to parliament (party-members). Today, it is obvious that the Jogorku Kenesh is a group of deputies, who are quite satisfied with the status quo- a minimum of responsibility, a maximum of material and social benefits. This approach is typical to newcomers, who quickly jumped over several social steps and have become legislators; although material benefits are important for the experienced deputies as well. By the way, it is always difficult to comprehend why in such a poor country; parliament members have so many material benefits. Even in more developed countries, MPs do not have personal cars, do not receive apartments (that are successfully privatized later), do not have the opportunity to encourage themselves by increasing their salary.

Here, there is an old-fashioned "socialist" approach to the whole parliament, when formal representatives of power "almost die from hunger," but factually have lost all of their material benefits. During Soviet times, it was various encouragements, preferential trip sheets, travel abroad; but today the list of benefits is wider - cars, apartments, traveling-and all the expense of the state. For example, it is difficult to understand why there was a need to buy expensive Japanese Camrys foreach deputy. Some say that it is necessary to meet voters, and upgrade the image of national parliament in front of foreign delegations. It is funny. The image is shaped not by the presence of an expensive car in a poor country, but patriotism and the quality of parliamentarians' work.

Except the material income, there is a high social status that is especially valued in our neopatrimonial society and the opportunity to influence a great number of state decisions that will materialize in money.

During long discussions, many criticize deputy immunity, which has a political nature and is necessary to improve the independence of MPs, and some talks on material preferences were not welcomed. When this issue was raised, it was mainly to discredit parliament in front of voters, and to improve the image of executive branch.

In fact, the unreasonably high material benefits are beneficial both to MPs (who will reject money by one's will?) and the executive power, which solves larger scale tasks to its own interests by providing some ‘encouragements' and hence, keeping deputies under control. Therefore, some discussions on unlimited waste by deputies remain just talk. The recent criticism on the legal violations by the previous composition of parliament is just an instrument of political struggle. Moreover, the material benefits of the previous convocation are being enjoyed by the current one. According to the logic, the next composition of parliament will criticize the current one, but likely it will remain as such.

Thus, a person who decides to become a deputy is guided by the following motives:

Social status (respect, capability to solve social-material problems, etc) highly increased. It is especially typical to neopatrimonial societies, and Kyrgyzstan is one of them, where the boss-dependent relations are clearly visible;

There is a chance to gain extremely high material benefits (apartment, car, high salary with some additional income, etc.);

There is a need to advance and defend certain ideas and views.

All three conditions must exist without any doubt. However, material benefits must not prevail, otherwise, deputy mercantilism appears to be another limitation to his independence.

Thus, to improve the effectiveness of parliament's institute, it is necessary to make a number of changes as follows:

To strengthen the role of parliament in the legislative sphere and control over the executive power;

Remove the imperative mandate;

To define reasonable material encouragement of a deputy, which must not be so high and must correspond to the economic development level of a country;

Undoubtfully, the major condition of parliament's effectiveness is its legitimacy, i.e. a real representation, secured at fair and free elections.

It is often one can hear such thoughts that we in Kyrgyzstan live not in an ideal world that is built based on western ideas of democracy, and is particularly true in the case of parliament.That we are different, and therefore we have to move differently. The question arises: how? No one can answer. It is because none of those critics knows the answer.

In practice, the development of society has similar traits both in the West and East. The incorporation of market relations, improvement of citizens' welfare lead to the necessity to have an adequate state. The key element here is parliament. It is an independent, representative and well-organized legislative body. Nowadays, it appears that from one side, we have made a choice in favor of parliament, but on other hand, we still try to keep the "socialist" formal approach to this institute. Without real changes in this sphere, it is hard to expect a qualitative advancement. In other words, we need reforms, and it is a necessary fundament for advancement.

The only thing is to answer the question: will such reforms be initiated by the current government or those who will replace them?

Tamerlan Ibraimov, the political expert of Kyrgyzstan, Director of the Political and Legal Research Center