In November 2011 I visited Kyrgyzstan during the final stages of campaigning for the presidential election. While the 16 candidates smiled and spoke hopefully of the bright future they offered their country, I struggled to find old friends and acquaintances. Many had left the country or had migrated to the capital city to escape grinding poverty, lack of opportunity, instability and ethnic discrimination.
The following month, Almaz Atambaev was sworn in as the new president. Remarkably, this was the first time that any of the Central Asian republics had witnessed a peaceful and constitutional handover of power since their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But if Atambaev is going to address some of the country’s most serious problems, he is going to need a lot more than the good will of international donors that his election victory has bought him.
