Belarus is not Kyrgyzstan, or why Lukashenko resisted
Color revolutions started happening in droves. In less than two months - as many as two pieces in the post-Soviet space. Not very successful in Belarus and already close to ending in the removal of the president (it’s difficult to talk about anyone’s victory here) in Kyrgyzstan.
At first glance, they have a lot in common - problematic elections, mass protests by those who did not recognize the election results, which resulted in mass riots and clashes with security forces. A typical scenario, by the way, for a color revolution; there is no need to build conspiracy theories on this similarity. Then everything went according to different scenarios. In Belarus, the authorities decided to suppress the protest without skimping on resources, but in Kyrgyzstan, the security forces quickly took a neutral position and lost the initiative. As a result, Lukashenko, although on bayonets, sits confidently in the presidential chair, and Jeenbekov is preparing to leave him and is bargaining on conditions.
Of course, now in Belarus itself, few politicians refrain from drawing parallels between the events in Kyrgyzstan and local Belarusian problems. Moreover, both sides received additional arguments.
Pro-government propaganda shouts “Do you want it like in Kyrgyzstan?”, hinting that only Lukashenko’s decisive actions prevented the republic from plunging into chaos. The telegram channel of the presidential press service, “Pul First,” for example, declared Jeenbekov’s negotiations with the protesters to be the main evil and tried to justify Lukashenko’s reluctance to make any compromise with his opponents. Lukashenko himself unexpectedly connected what was happening in Kyrgyzstan with the recent quarantine and once again praised himself for his “wise” refusal to do so.
The opposition, in turn, says “We want” and writes posts about the courageous Kyrgyz revolutionaries who practically destroyed their “dictatorial regime” overnight, hinting to their supporters that it is time to be more radical.
In reality, both are far from the truth. It could not be the same as in Kyrgyzstan in Belarus. Belarus is a mature and long-established autocracy, in which the ruler has long controlled almost all internal political life. The opposition has virtually no support in the elites and, with the exception of street activity, no tools to influence domestic politics.
Kyrgyzstan is a loose and unstable state, surpassing even Ukraine in terms of the number of color revolutions, not to mention the riots and armed insurrections that also took place more than once. Despite the fact that Jeenbekov tried to build an autocratic model, the opposition in Kyrgyzstan was far from nominal. Unlike Belarus, in Kyrgyzstan the influential force is the local political-oligarchic clans, which also have their own conflicts and contradictions, especially between the North and the South.
This explains the behavior of the Belarusian and Kyrgyz security forces at the decisive moment. In Belarus, the protesters were confronted by fighters, many of whom were born under Lukashenko and did not know any other government, brought up on the identification of Lukashenko and the state itself and who were methodically taught that if the opposition wins, the fate of the Ukrainian “Berkut” awaits them.
In Kyrgyzstan, the security forces already remembered a couple of color revolutions and were aware that power can change quickly and unpredictably. That is why the Belarusian riot police “gesticulated” in full, and his Kyrgyz colleagues, as soon as they smelled something fried, chose not to interfere in the political conflict.
Some commentators cite the external factor as the fundamental difference between the conflicts in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. Allegedly, in Belarus everything is inspired from the outside, and in Kyrgyzstan there are their own internal squabbles. In reality, internal problems and internal dissatisfaction with the authorities are primary in both cases.
Lukashenko transplanted or forced out all more or less strong candidates from the country, and organized the dirtiest and most opaque elections in Belarusian history. This could not but cause mass discontent and one should not forget about it when analyzing what is happening in the republic. Another thing is that the Belarusian opposition, without access to internal resources, has been feeding in the West for decades, while the Kyrgyz opposition relies, for the most part, on local oligarchic clans. Hence the demonstrative involvement of the West in the Belarusian conflict. I doubt that the Kyrgyz conflict also happened without external forces, it’s just that their participation is not so obvious.
If we compare the situation in Kyrgyzstan with the situation in Belarus, then as an example for comparison we need to take not Belarus in 2020, but Belarus in 1996, when Lukashenko had a rebellious parliament, crowds of thousands in the squares and negotiations with the opposition through the mediation of Chernomyrdin. Then, by the way, Russia saved Lukashenko for the first time, for whom, given the existing situation, nothing good was going to happen.
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