Not a good sign:
Amid the early April tumult that brought down former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration, young men in Bishkek and other cities began forming druzhiniki groups to patrol the streets and restore order. These groups were originally envisioned as a temporary solution to security challenges. But in the ongoing unrest that has plagued Kyrgyzstan since April, militia groups have kept on amassing influence. [Eurasianet
Ran into this who's who of Kyrgyz politics looking up the new Interior Minister, but it seems generally pretty worth paying attention to.
Kyrgyzstan has a new interior minister. Probably no bad thing, given that the accomplishments of previous acting interior minister Bolot Sher consisted of:
* pursuing Bakiyev's relatives
* Making the supremely reassuring statement that "I am in command of 80 percent of the Ministry of Interior...The other 20 percent is still waffling."
On the other hand his replacement, Kubat Baibolov, is coming straight from an oh-so-successful stint running things in Jalal-Abad
The news coming out of the country looks all too similar to that which we saw in Spring of 2005, only more violent. In general, the events of the last several days taken together with those of March 2005 suggest two things about this country in the twenty-first century – 1) that the Kyrgyz people, unlike most former Soviet citizens, are unwilling to allow a corrupt government to stay in power through its control of the political system and are ready to risk personal safety in order to prevent this; and 2) the elite of Kyrgyzstan has yet to demonstrate that it is capable of establishing a viable government that meets people’s demands and moves Kyrgyzstan’s development forward.
