KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

certain segment of the population. They participate in public affairs management through
their representatives” [4, Ch. 1, Art. 1; Ch. 2, Art. 3]. Non-governmental organizations,
unlike political parties, according to the Law of KR on NPO (non-profit organizations) of
11/02/1999 (Ch. 1, p.1) cannot have political goals or engage in politics.
Another question is: why didn’t the NGOs and political parties themselves initiate
cooperation or projects, establishing partnership relations between them, for such a long
period?
The Practice of Kyrgyzstan: Were There Any Attempts of Cooperation?
As world experience has demonstrated, any successful transition to democracy
requires consensus between three opposing socio-political forces: the national truce, the
agreement on the “rules of the game” 2 and the recognition of the basic principles of the
social organization model, which is supposed to be established [30, p. 97]. So far this
consensus has not been achieved in Kyrgyzstan.
The history of social partnership in Kyrgyzstan may be divided into two periods:
before 2000 and after 2000 [14, pp. 106-109]. If during the first period relations between
different sectors had been strained [6, pp. 50-52], during the second period the Government
made some attempts to establish a dialog with NGOs. The first roundtable discussions,
for example “9-9-9-9” (8/04/2000) and “25-25-25-25” 3 (17/02/2001), involving the
Government, NGOs, political parties and the business sector, tried to establish links
between these actors, maintenance of civil accord, societal consolidation and developing
constructive solutions [12, pp. 4-5; 26, p. 2]. Unfortunately, the declarations adopted at
that time proved unviable.
The attempts to invite Kyrgyz NGOs and political parties to joint discussion of
the Comprehensive Development Framework and the social and political problems
were made by the Counterpart Consortium project (February 2001) [17]. Despite an
understanding and recognition of NGOs as a serious social partner after those events,
there was no real cooperation [17]. The NGO Fair in Kyrgyzstan (17-19 July 2002,
Osh), which was attended by the representatives of the Government and donors, also
demonstrated their desire for constructive dialogue. 4 Of course, the meetings themselves
could be considered an example of cooperation between the Government and NGOs,
but the forms of possible cooperation were still discussed during those events.
The latest NGO forums in Kyrgyzstan (May 2007), roundtables in seven regions
of the country (October 2007) and the National Conference of NGOs (February 2008)
attempted to rethink the role and activities of NGOs, the prospects for their development,
as well as the issues of cooperation with the state and political parties [27]. Political
parties were suggested as one way to use the humanitarian potential of NGOs as a
contribution to cooperation [27].
In general, such events were initiated by NGOs and the Government, not political
parties. This again demonstrates the weakness of political parties and their low influence
on the society. Despite the large number of political parties for such a small country as
2
Rather, it deals with the division of working activities and intervention/non-interference in each
other’s affairs.
3
The title means the number of participants from the Government, NGOs, business sector and political
parties in these roundtables.
4
The fair was organized by the “Coalition For Democracy and Civil Society” [11, pp. 4-5].
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