"Things won't come off here as in Ukraine. We're in for civil war, believe me! Each of us is earning his bread now. We've become somewhat better off. What do we want with all that?" one Suyumbek reasons excitedly. A man of 27, he is driving his own well-worn Opel.
The President's men share the taxi driver's apprehensions. There are plans to re-enact Georgian and Ukrainian events as Kyrgyzstan goes to the polls on an upcoming parliamentary election. If those plans come true, Kyrgyz stability will be undermined much worse than Ukrainian, warns Abdil Seghizbayev, presidential press secretary.
This year is rich in elections-Kyrgyzstan is having a parliamentary poll, February 27, and a presidential in October.
"The people who are out to turn Kyrgyzstan into a Ukraine of 2004 may have the Tajikistan of 1992 instead," expects Mr. Seghizbayev. The country may split into north and south, he added, uneasily.
There are two references to underlie his statement. One is there for all to see. The other, veiled, is in the words, "The people who are out..."
Kyrgyz administrative officers openly say the tentative "velvet revolution" is funded from the West. They even refer to organizations which are allegedly doing so-above all, the National Democratic Institution and the Freedom House. Those were who backed the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
As Kyrgyz experts point out, the Soros Foundation is conspicuously neutral. Many reasons are mentioned why this formidable force has withdrawn from the suspense-laden situation. Some say George Soros holds President Askar Akayev in the utmost respect for promoting democratic arrangements and freedoms in his country. Others say Mr. Soros knows better than getting involved in a hazardous Kyrgyz endeavor after his organizations left Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyz opposition activists share the regime's opinion: the country may split if it follows the Orange Revolution pattern.
Financial benefactors know Kyrgyz developments under the name of Tulip, or Lemon Revolution, the latter epithet referring to the delicate yellow of highland tulips that will break into blossom early in March.
"This nation will find itself on a burnt-out site if public unrest breaks out spontaneously," says Adakhan Madumarov, leader of the Ata Zhurt opposition movement.
Though he welcomes Freedom House activities in his country, he does not think opposition will benefit with a velvet revolution.
"We shall gladly do without a Yellow Revolution unless the regime provokes it," remarked Reena Prizhivoit, prominent journalist, and winner of the European Commission award for democracy and rights.
"We shall have no revolution-be it orange or any other. After all, hemp is the only plant that grows well in this country, so Hemp Revolution is the only sort we can have. But that one will take long to come," said a moderate Kyrgyz political activist.
His tongue-in-cheek remark highlights another salient feature of Kyrgyzstan. That is drug-related organized crime. Gangsters may well try to get in power if the country is thrown into unrest.
Suleiman Imanbayev, Central Election Commission president, has a public reception day every Thursday. People flock in with their problems, lining the queue for hours in his tiny office. These are activists from the provinces. They never need to apply in advance, and commission officers never make a selection.
The people on the queue eagerly tell about their predicaments. A group of ethnic Russians and Kyrgyz from a Bishkek suburbia have major objections to methods on which their district election commission has been manned. "We don't care who wins the poll. It must be fair play! That's all that matters!" a middle-aged woman hotly cries.
The Kyrgyz opposition is fragmented, and most people on the queue are wary of election commissions having a bias against it, weak as it is.
Mr. Imanbayev strongly insists on an aboveboard election: "The government and the central commission are doing everything they can for a just and honest poll. We can't rule out ballot rigging altogether-but whatever trespasses cannot wholly determine the fate of an election. After all, every voter is independent in his booth to decide whom to vote for."
The commission president is dead set against overseas-based organizations influencing the pre-election campaign. "As things really are, sovereignty and noninterference in domestic affairs remain mere beautiful words. To object to it is sheer quixotism-but someone ought to say it out loud, after all."
Mr. Imanbayev does not think exit polls can come as an efficient tool of monitoring vote count. "We shall urgently pass polling station records to all hopefuls so as they could make a parallel vote count of their own. That appears a far better way," he holds.
The parliamentary poll of February 27 will be of crucial importance for Kyrgyzstan's further development. Naturally, pre-election political struggle is gaining momentum with every passing day.
The new Kyrgyz legislation passes personnel policies entirely from presidential competence to the Zhogorku Kenesh, parliament. It will depend on parliamentarians alone to appoint officers from top to bottom, ministers and district judges alike. That makes the pre-election race far more dramatic than before the latest parliamentary poll.
There was a tiny islet of Tulip Revolution in front of Parliament House-pickets who left it yesterday. Two dozen people had been punctual about it for a month. They appeared in a public garden every morning to stay up to noon, holding high up three or four yellow streamers. The pickets did not come yesterday-either because of a frost 18 degrees centigrade, or because they had seen no public enthusiasm.
The city center is calm, with no loud flags and streamers, whether orange- or lemon-colored. There is not a slightest presentiment of civil warfare all around.
