Revolution echoes around Russia

In an interview Tuesday, Akayev refused to resign, saying he was "the only elected and legitimate president," but admitted to making mistakes. "There were many mistakes. But we remain on the right path," he told the independent radio station Ekho Moskvyi.

As he alienated supporters, Akayev's base narrowed, which may explain why his regime evaporated when demonstrators barged into the presidential office last week. "One family basically privatized the state," says Irusbek Omurzakov, editor of the opposition weekly Tribuna. "In the end, no one felt like defending it."

Similar tales of corruption have emerged from several post-Soviet countries. "In Georgia, we know that [the new post-revolutionary president Mikhael] Saakashvili managed to triple state revenues by gaining control over money previously lost to graft," says Talant Mamitov, an economic official with the new Kyrgyz government.

Ironically, the post-Soviet countries that have so far been rocked by revolution have been among the most liberal and relatively democratic in an admittedly tough region. "Akayev, to his credit, allowed a fairly permissive environment for NGO's to work," says Stuart Kahn, Kyrgyzstan project director for Freedom House, which is partly financed by the US government. The danger, he says, is that other Central Asian leaders may see Akayev's concessions to democracy as the Achilles' heel of his regime. "The lesson they may draw is that the permissive, or semi-repressive environment Akayev created is antithetical to maintaining the status quo."

Neighboring Kazakhstan could be next in line for upheaval, some experts say. Former Soviet politbureau member Nursultan Nazarbayev has built a similar crony-centered, semi-democratic and, reportedly, deeply corrupt regime similar to Akayev's government. "Kazakh society will start thinking about more rapid changes," says Mr. Baisalov. "At the very least, Nazarbayev will probably forget any plans about his daughter inheriting power."

Uzbekistan, where another old Communist Party chief, Islam Karimov, rules with an iron fist, is a more worrisome case. "In Uzbekistan the frustration level is growing," says Mr. Kahn. "We've seen protests there already. There's a threat of an extreme reaction to that repression."

Some argue that it's only a matter of time before the revolutionary tide sweeps over Russia. Several of the country's 20 ethnic republics have a similar political profile to Kyrgyzstan, with a long-time ruler monopolizing power and often extending corrupt tentacles into business. "Events around the former Soviet Union have raised the possibility that similar things can happen here too," says Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the independent Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow. "The situation in several of our republics, including Tatarstan and Bashkortistan, look very much like Kyrgyzstan."

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