Kyrgyz electoral fiasco involves familiar faces

‘Revolution’, best understood in the Kyrgyzstani context as presidential replacement engineered through elite-led popular protests, typically in the wake of disputed elections, is starting to become the country’s modal form of leadership change. But the events of October 2020 elections are unlike the Tulip Revolution of 2005, which marked former president Askar Akayev’s fall from power, or the unravelling of the state that went from former president Kurmanbek Bakiev’s fall in April 2010 to the Osh conflict of June 2010. This is a power grab by political, business and criminal networks.