Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution and the Habit of Revolt
In March 2005, after parliamentary elections widely reported as fraudulent, protests that began in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad reached Bishkek and overran the government building. President Askar Akayev, in office since before independence, fled to Russia. The episode was read at the time as the third of the colour revolutions, after Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. His successor Kurmanbek Bakiyev was himself overthrown in April 2010 in violence that killed dozens in the capital, followed within weeks by ethnic riots in the south between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that killed several hundred and displaced tens of thousands. The country then did something unusual for the region: it adopted a constitution shifting substantial power from the presidency to parliament. In October 2020, after another disputed parliamentary election, crowds again seized the government building; Sadyr Japarov was freed from prison by protesters, became prime minister within days and president within months, and promptly restored a strong presidency by referendum in 2021. Kyrgyzstan also hosted, simultaneously, a US air base at Manas supplying the Afghan war and a Russian air base at Kant, roughly thirty kilometres apart, until the American base closed in 2014.
- Year: 2005 CE
- Category: Political
