ABSTRACT
Kyrgyzstan’s slide toward authoritarianism never reached the depths achieved, however, in neighbouring states such as Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. For all the formal powers accorded to President Akaev, he was still forced to confront parliamentary resistance and to work with prime ministers who did not always share his policy vision. Although by the mid-1990s he was manipulating the vote to guarantee his re-election and to limit the opposition’s presence in parliament, to the surprise of many, President Akaev publicly committed himself to standing down in 2005 when he reached the end of his term of office, a move that led to a schism in the ruling elite and ultimately the unseating of Akaev in the Tulip Revolution of March 2005.
