Revolution in Kyrgyzstan of 2020 and the Sadyr Japarov's populist project

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Chelyabinsk State University

University of Edinburgh

Revolution in Kyrgyzstan of 2020 and the Sadyr Japarov's populist project

Nokhrin I.M., PhD in history (Chelyabinsk, Russia), Msc in Sociology Associate Professor at the Department of Political Sciences and International Relations

Chelyabinsk

UK

There are two tendencies in populism studies that this paper addresses. The first can be defined as empirical Western-centrism manifested as the dominance of the European and American agenda in mainstream works on populism. Although, some researchers emphasize the global significance of the phenomenon, the proportion of studies related to the populist parties, movements, and leaders in the rest of the world is significantly inferior to the number of works on the Western agenda. The second trend is the tradition to approach populism, mainly, as a manifestation of some kind of crisis of democratic `normality' in the context of electoral processes and party competition in liberal democratic political systems. If so, does it mean that populism is an indistinctive phenomenon beyond democratic party systems or the Western world? Moreover, what should be done with cases discovered in the non-democratic or non-liberal context, do they have the potential to develop the theory of populism. Therefore, my intention in this paper is to broaden the understanding of populism with the case of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan of October 2020 and the new Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov elected in January 2021. I believe that populism can be found beyond the Western left-right ideological opposition as well as to draw its strength and distinct symbolic content from alternative sources. Therefore, I am going to argue within the framework of Laclauian that Japarov's political logic is essentially populist, although the Kyrgyz political system cannot be described as liberal or democratic. Moreover, I am convinced that the Kyrgyz case can contribute to the development of populism studies, while the theory of populism can suggest the further development of the situation in Kyrgyzstan.

Keywords: populism, nationalism, ethno-nationalism, populist nationalism, Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov.

И.М. Нохрин

РЕВОЛЮЦИЯ В КЫРГЫЗСТАНЕ 2020 ГОДА И ПОПУЛИСТСКИЙ ПРОЕКТ САДЫРА ЖАПАРОВА

Данная статья затрагивает две тенденции в современных исследованиях популизма. Первую можно определить как эмпирический западоцентризм. Она выражается в доминировании европейской и американской повестки дня в основных работах о популизме. Хотя некоторые исследователи подчеркивают глобальное значение этого явления, доля трудов, посвященных популистским партиям, движениям и лидерам в остальном мире, значительно уступает количеству работ по западной проблематике. Вторая тенденция - традиция подходить к популизму, главным образом как к проявлению некоего кризиса демократической «нормальности» в контексте избирательных процессов и партийной конкуренции в либерально-демократических политических системах. Соответственно, снова возникает вопрос: означает ли это, что популизм - явление, не выходящее за рамки демократических партийных систем или западного мира? И как тогда быть со случаями, обнаруженными в недемократическом или нелиберальном контексте? Есть ли у них потенциал для развития теории популизма? Поэтому мы намерены в этой статье расширить понимание популизма на примере революции в Кыргызстане в октябре 2020 года и избрания нового президента Кыргызстана Садыра Жапарова в январе 2021 года. Мы считаем, что популизм можно найти за пределами западных левых и правых политических партий и движений и что этот феномен может черпать силу и характерное символическое содержание из альтернативных источников. Поэтому мы собираемся доказать, опираясь на подход Э. Лакло, что политическая логика Жапарова по существу популистская, хотя политическую систему Кыргызстана нельзя назвать либеральной или демократической. Более того, мы убеждены, что случай с Кыргызстаном может способствовать развитию исследований популизма, тогда как, согласно той же теории популизма, ситуация в Кыргызстане будет и дальше развиваться.

Ключевые слова: популизм, национализм, этнонационализм, популистский национализм, Кыргызстан, Садыр Жапаров.

Introduction

There are two tendencies in populism studies that this paper addresses. The first can be defined as empirical Western-centrism manifested as the dominance of the European and American agenda in mainstream works on populism [1-5]. Although, some researchers emphasize the global significance of the phenomenon [6], the proportion of studies related to the populist parties, movements, and leaders in the rest of the world is significantly inferior to the number of works on the Western agenda.

The second trend is the tradition to approach populism, mainly, as a manifestation of some kind of crisis of democratic `normality' in the context of electoral processes and party competition in liberal democratic political systems [7-10]. For instance, as Brubaker [11] stresses supporting Mair [12; 13] and Kriesi [14], the transformation of parties and party systems in Europe and America and the weakening of representative democracy is the structural trend that expanded opportunities for populism. Mudde and Kaltwasser go further and claim that populism can be found first and foremost within the context of liberal democracy [10]. If so, does it mean that populism is an indistinctive phenomenon beyond democratic party systems or the Western world? Moreover, what should be done with cases discovered in the non-democratic or non-liberal context [15-18], do they have the potential to develop the theory of populism.

Therefore, my intention in this paper is to broaden the understanding of populism with the case of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan of October 2020 and the new Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov elected in January 2021. I believe that populism can be found beyond the Western left-right ideological opposition as well as to draw its strength and distinct symbolic content from alternative sources. Therefore, I am going to argue within the framework of Laclauian theory [19-21] that Japarov's political logic is essentially populist, although the Kyrgyz political system cannot be described as liberal or democratic. Moreover, I am convinced that the Kyrgyz case can contribute to the development of populism studies, while the theory of populism can suggest the further development of the situation in Kyrgyzstan.

In this regard, the object under study is Japarov's populist discourse [22-24] which is built on the construction of `the Kyrgyz people' through the antagonism with 'the elite' formed by the so-called corrupted Kyrgyz bureaucrats and officials associated with the Sooronbai Jeenbekov's government ousted in October 2020. Claiming to represent the Kyrgyz people as an underdog of `the corrupted officials' Japarov constructed the gap between the former and the latter emphasizing kinship relations between `corrupted officials' or representing, in other words `the elite' as a genealogically distinct group. Moreover, he formed the opposition between himself and the parliament as a reflection of the dichotomy between `the people' and `the corrupt officials' which allowed him to garner broad support during the presidential elections and substantiate the constitutional reform that significantly strengthened presidential powers in January 2021. Finally, the Kyrgyz case gives support for the Laclauian insight that anomie is a necessary precondition for populism that determines its specific forms and therefore essential for its understanding [20]. Clearly, Japarov's populism rests on the Soviet ideological and symbolic legacy rethought and upcycled for a new political context. It resurrected the Soviet concept of the people's democracy as a direct democracy to legitimize the constitutional reform of 2021 through the institution of the People's Kurultai which I discuss later. Also, Japarov's populism draws strength from the essentially Soviet understanding of the people as the synonym of a nation both of which are performed in ethnic terms. Finally, the Soviet symbolic legacy can be found in the specifics of his political style and rhetoric representing Japarov as the political leader of `the people's origin' and, at the same time, an extraordinary person.

The paper is processed as follows. The first part is intended to fit the phenomenon of Kyrgyz populism with the theoretical paradigm of populism research and thereby substantiate the possibility of populism outside the Western political agenda. Based on Ernesto Laclau's approach, the specificity of Kyrgyz populism is explained through the concept of anomie, which links the logic of Japarov's populism with the specifics of Kyrgyzstani Post-Soviet political development. It allows defining his populist project as an attempt to overcome post-Soviet anomie and create a new social order after three failures of the nation-state project in 2005, 2010, and 2020.

In the second part, Sadyr Japarov's discourse [23-25], rhetoric [11], and style [6; 26] is examined to point out the common trends and techniques with populists of Europe and America. The drawing of different theoretical approaches intended, on the one hand, to verify from different standpoints the relevance of the Soviet ideological and symbolic background for Japarov's populism, and on the other hand, to evaluate the potential of these theories on the material from the non-democratic and non-liberal agenda. The fact that these theories work well in the Kyrgyz context raises the question of the degree to which the context of liberal democracy is important for understanding populism. It also points out that the issue of the symbolic origins of populism is still quite underestimated.

In the conclusion, some assumptions regarding the further development of populism in Kyrgyzstan are made. First, Japarov's populist mobilization was rapid and successful because it had no alternatives while the ethno-nationalist project of the 2000s was completely discredited but no viable alternatives were formulated in the 2010s. Therefore, it provided Japarov with strong credibility to win the presidential elections and carry out constitutional reform. For the same reason, it is highly likely that he will hold out in power at least until the end of his first presidential term (provided that no powerful challenges from outside Kyrgyzstan will play havoc with his plans). On the other hand, elected as a president Japarov crossed the political frontier that divided `the Kyrgyz people' and the elite as `the corrupt officials' associated himself with the latter. Moreover, this frontier still exists as well as the social demands of `the people'. Therefore, Japarov has to satisfy at least some of these demands to destroy the frontier or the emergence of another populist politician is inevitable who will simply take Japarov's place as the people's leader. In this case, another political crisis or revolution may happen. Finally, the symbolic content of Japarov's populist project full of allusions to the Soviet past indicates his intention to break with everything associated with the post-Soviet transition period or `the last thirty years of problems' including representative democracy, parliamentarism, and political pluralism. Therefore, there is reason to believe that in the coming years the political system of Kyrgyzstan will become more traditional and undemocratic.

Post-Soviet anomie and the nation-building in Kyrgyzstan

The first challenge that arises for one who is going to discuss Kyrgyz populism is to substantiate that populism, in general, is possible in Kyrgyzstan. Current approaches to populism as an ideology [4], an electoral strategy [3], or a political repertoire [11] portray populism as a (radical) right challenge to the contemporary liberal consensus. So, the very possibility of such a challenge may seem dubious in a society where liberal ideas and symbols have never been dominant. populism kyrgyzstan japarov

However, another founding father of the contemporary theory of populism Ernesto Laclau offers a different approach to populism as “the royal road to understanding something about the ontological constitution of the political as such”. He associated its origin with the concept of anomie or “the need for some kind of order that becomes more important than the actual ontic order” [20]. So, this profound insight gives a lot for understanding the phenomenon of populism in the societies of the former USSR since the deepest state of anomie stroke them a decade before and, at least, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it is necessary to turn to the events of the late 1980s when the collapse of the USSR was brewing preceded by a deep crisis of Soviet ideology and the rapid spread of anomie to find the origins of contemporary PostSoviet populism.

As Michael Mann rightly remarked in his famous volume, by 1980 almost no one believed in Marxism-Leninism in the USSR while the Soviet society was embraced by `moral depletion' [27]. Social fragmentation, nihilism, and cynicism among youth, the cult of a self-sufficient entrepreneur who does not feel any responsibility to the society in pursuit of individual prosperity came in place of the earlier ideal image of a Soviet citizen as `a builder of communism' who was supposed to have a consciousness of societal duty, to be an active participant in labour for the benefit of society, ready for comradely mutual aid and intolerant towards peculators of people's property and everyone who acts only in selfish interests [28; 29].

At the same time, the disappointment with the existing social order embraced not only morality but almost all the ideas and concepts on which Soviet society held for a long time including Soviet multinationalism which was symbolically expressed by the metaphor `the friendship of the peoples' or `the brotherhood of the peoples' [30]. The national discourse that the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government long used to obtain mass support in the national republics turned against them as soon as its inability became evident to continue the policy, to say by Terry Martin words, of `affirmative action' imperialism [30-33]. Moreover, since national identity was one of the few officially permitted forms of identity in the USSR (unlike of gender, religious, and class which were silenced for decades) it was not surprising that the protest engendered by the crisis of the Soviet system took the form of national separatism of the 1980s.

In the national discourse of the Soviet republics of the late 1980s, the `freedom' in the sense of national independence was one of the strongest symbols representing, at the same time, the vivid example of an empty signifier that Laclau defined as a point of crystallization of a new identity and at the same time an expression of particular demands [20]. In the public discussions of the late Soviet times `freedom' meant simultaneously getting rid of the rule of the nomenklatura (the communist party bureaucracy), discredited morality and the Iron Curtain as well as the obtaining by `the people' civil rights and freedoms, parliamentarism, economic prosperity, and high living standards.

However, the situation in the Kyrgyz SSR (Soviet Socialistic Republic) was visibly different from Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, or Ukraine with a mostly agricultural economy and the vast majority of the population living in rural areas. According to the 1989 census, the share of the urban population in the Kirghiz SSR was 38.2 % - the lowest figure among the republics of the USSR (except the Tajik SSR where this indicator was 33 %). At the same time, the Kyrgyz SSR had the lowest level of the so-called `titular nation' among the urban population - 52.4 %. The rest identified themselves as Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, etc. Moreover, only 22.8 % of residents of Bishkek, the capital and the largest city of the Kyrgyz SSR, identified themselves as Kyrgyz while the rest were mainly Russians (55.7 %).

All the above explains why strong nationalist movements did not form in the Kyrgyz SSR. If to follow the modernist tradition in the nationalism studies in can be explained by the assumption that the nation-building process in Kyrgyzstan was at the very initial stage [34-36]. It was only the phase A, in the words of Miroslav Hroch [37] when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, as Morozova points out, most of the Kyrgyz intelligentsia that appeared in 1960-1970 as a result of the Soviet welfare state project merged into the nomenklatura. They used a career in the communist party as a kind of social lift paying by loyalty for personal benefits [38]. Finally, since the processes of industrialization and urbanization were still very far from completion the potential of the `affirmative action empire' was not yet exhausted making the economic benefits of being part of the USSR more attractive than the alluring prospects of independence. It seems like the latter was For the full data of the Soviet census of 1989 see Demoscope Weekly, available at http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ ssp/census.php?cy=6, accessed 06 March 2021. obvious to the elites as well as to the masses, given that 96.4 % of the population (the second largest indicator among the national republics after Turkmenistan) voted to preserve the USSR in the 1991 referendum For the full data see Soobshchenie Central'noj komissii referenduma SSSR Ob itogah referenduma SSSR, sostoyavshegosya 17 marta 1991 goda, available at https://www.gorby.ru/userfiles/file/referendum_rezultat.pdf, accessed 06 March 2021.. Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan had no choice other than independence given the nomenklatura from Bishkek had no role in the negotiating the Belovezhskoye agreement which ended the existence of the USSR.

As a result, the situation had become quite contradictory. On the one hand, the elites of Kyrgyzstan had to dress in nationalist clothes in order to maintain power and suppress political opponents, just as the nomenklatura had already done in other republics. Moreover, they had to give in to the demands of thin but rapidly growing nationalists to begin the institutionalization of a nation-state as well as to initialize the politics of nationalization in order to convert the population of the Kirghiz SSR into the Kirghiz nation. Consequently, informal nationalization practices in favour of `titular nationality' spread, in the first instance, in the public sector, which was under the control of thin intelligentsia, the former party nomenklatura and new national leaders providing people defined as the Kyrgyz with privileges in competition for jobs, access to education, and informal communication practices [39; 40]. The discriminatory practices for minorities were even more open and rough legitimized by the Soviet tradition of ethnoterritorial federalism in which the national republics of the USSR were considered to belong to the nations whose names they bear [41; 42]. Paradoxically, but the logic of `freedom' as the getting rid of Soviet values including `the brotherhood of the peoples' meant that `non-titular' ethnic groups are alien and therefore can be limited in rights and opportunities.

On the other hand, the leaders of independent Kyrgyzstan could foresee that radical nationalization would lead to large-scale emigration of the non-Kirgiz population, primarily Russians, who were a significant part of the high skilled urban population. Unlike the Baltic countries, for instance, well-known for their discriminatory politics towards the Russian minority, the `titular' nation of Kyrgyzstan could hardly fill this gap on the labour market [39]. As a result, the first official project of the national ideology developed personally by the first president Askar Akayev was designed to soften the politics of nationalisation with the slogan `Kyrgyzstan is our common home' For more information about Askar Akayev national project see 43. Marat E. Imagined Past, Uncertain Future: The Creation of National Ideologies in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan // Problems of post-communism. 2008. Vol. 55, № 1. P. 12-24.. It was a combination of the Soviet rhetoric of `the friendship of peoples' and liberal values of equal rights and civil liberties which influenced Akayev during the first years of his rule. Its central idea was the `international unity' in the sense of solidarity between nations like the Soviet `brotherhood of peoples' which allowed ethnic non-Kyrgyz to become a full-fledged part of society. However, the new edition of Soviet multinationalism did not find support among the elites as well as the broad masses, especially because it required those who defined themselves as the `titular nation' to give up attempts to secure a privileged position in society. Moreover, as Marat emphasizes, Akayev's ideas conflicted with Kyrgyzstan's constitution where `titular nationality' and `titular language' were just defined in ethnic terms in 1993 [43].

As a result, two competing visions of a nation framed in Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s and early 2000s: the president's project of `common home' and the unofficial ethnonationalism. The strength of the former directly depended on the mass support of the president, which dropped to a minimum in the early 2000s. The reason was self-evident: contrary to the broad popular expectations, `freedom' in the sense of national independence did not bring democracy and prosperity but followed by economic decline, new authoritarianism, poverty, and social disruption. The trigger for the broad popular protests that eventually led to the 2005 Tulip Revolution was the Aksy tragedy of 2002. The unrest was raised by the arrest of the local deputy of the Kyrgyz parliament Azimbek Beknazarov, who criticized the authorities for the signing of the border demarcation agreement with China in 2001 according to which Kyrgyzstan lost the part of Uzongu-Kuush area [44]. As Beknazarov later stated, the issue was not just about the disputed land, but more about the manner how President Akaev made a decision without addressing all the members of Parliament and informing the general public. Moreover, the fact that the territories transferred to China were located in the south of Kyrgyzstan while the beneficiary of the deal supposed to be `the northerners' (with the opportunities for obtaining Chinese loans and investments) allowed Beknazarov to accuse the government and personally president Akayev in regional factionalism [44]. As a result, six were killed when the people of Bospiek, the village in the South-West of Kyrgyzstan went on the demonstration against the transfer of Kyrgyz territories to China.

Explaining the crisis scholars usually address the problems of tribalism and separation by kinship including the excessive strengthening of president Akayev's family as well as to the traditional conflict of the northern and south-western elites divided both geographically and historically since the era of the Soviet Union and even before [45-48]. From this perspective, the Aksy tragedy can be explained as an example of regionalism and the weakness of democracy given that Kyrgyz society was almost at the very beginning of the modernization process [48].

However, another perspective on the events is possible given that the loss of territories in Ьzongь- Kuush was a largely symbolic issue because the transferred highlands were not inhabited, there were no proven resources and economic activities except occasional grazing. As Smith emphasizes, one of the key processes of nation formation is territorialization - the symbolical allocation of the majority of the community in the “homeland”, and the development of collective memories and attachments to particular historic territories within recognized borders [49]. Again, it was a long-term intellectual tradition in the Soviet Union and even earlier, in the Russian Empire to explain the existence of nations by a common territory and to associate national dignity with the size of the territory [41; 50]. Therefore, the tragedy in Aksy and the following Tulip revolution can be explained as the culmination of a rivalry between the two national projects, in which Akayev's project lost after being discredited by the government's economic failures. During the events, ethnic nationalism and lost lands of Ьzongь-Kuush became a symbol around which opponents of the regime were mobilized.

Unlike Askar Akayev, the new president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiev, did not have his own national project. During his rule, ethnic nationalism continued to strengthen its position while no vestige remained of Akayev's `interethnic unity' concept [43]. The attempts to raise political capital on the demands to provide the Kyrgyz with privileged status became customary for many politicians including Bakiyev himself. This explains why the next political crisis, the so-called Melon Revolution of 2010, was accompanied by unprecedented clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southwestern Kyrgyzstan. As a result of the riots, about 1000 people were killed, 2000 injured and 400 thousand displaced. For more information about events in Osh see Kyrgyzstan: Widening Ethnic Divisions in the South. Crisis Group Asia Report N°222, 29 March 2012, available at: https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/222-kyrgyzstan-widening-ethnic- divisions-in-the-south.pdf, accessed 06 March 2021. International observers, as well as many scholars, blamed the Bakiyev government for the tragedy, pointing out the continuing discriminatory pressure on the Uzbek community [40; 51].

The international attention to the tragedy in Osh made the new government of Kyrgyzstan salience ethnic issues on the public agenda [52]. Trying to evade the negative perception of Kyrgyzstan as a weak state torn apart by internal conflicts government returned to the concept of `the friendship of peoples' in the official discourse. However, unlike the Soviet times, it was just a rhetorical faзade without an institutional framework. The `friendship' meant the inability to discuss the causes and consequences of violence in Osh (since it was evidently far from friendship) and turned into a taboo on the public expression of ethno-national demands as well as the politicization of national identity in general. Indeed, the question remained open how the `friendship' is possible after decades of discriminatory practices and violence without inter-ethnic reconciliation and open discussion of mutual grievances and demands.

Thus, the Kyrgyz national ideology made a loop from the Soviet institutionalized friendship of peoples to the declarative friendship of the peoples of the 2010s through the ethnic nationalism of the 2000s, which turned into the tragedies in Aksy and Osh, as well as the revolutions of 2005 and 2010. During this time, political elites have failed to go beyond the egg-like Soviet ideological paradigm with a thin layer of official multinationalism outside and a deep hidden ethnonationalism inside and formulate an ideological project for a new Kyrgyz nation-state. In other words, it was an era of chronic anomie, or to say by Laclau's words, the long-lasting situation of uncertainty and crisis when the need for some kind of order has become more important than the actual ontic order [20].

The important specificity of the Kyrgyz case of anomie was that the previous social order had been destroyed as a result of the external processes, mainly by the collapse of the USSR, and therefore it was not preceded by the emergence of extended `equivalential chain of unsatisfied demands' in Kyrgyz society [20; 21]. Civic nationalism in the spirit of Akayev's `common home' project could become the `common denominator' [20], however, the economic crisis of the 1990s and the slide of Akayev's regime into authoritarianism, again, thwarted the creation of the stable social order. Likewise, the revolutions of 2005 and 2010 were not successful because the social demands of the opposition were limited by ethno-nationalist foundations. Therefore, new political crises were inevitable since there were no signs of consolidation. The next revolution happened in October 2020, when massive violations during the elections to the Jogorku Kenesh (the unicameral Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic) led to massive protests in Bishkek and the resignation of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Sadyr Japarov's populist logic

Perhaps the most interesting fact of Sadyr Japarov's political career is that he did not run in the parliamentary elections of 2020 that were the main reason for unrest, and even more, he was imprisoned when the protests had begun. Only on October 6, he was released by supporters and then immediately appointed as the prime minister by the Kyrgyz parliament. Afterwards, without any public debates or discussions, Japarov was appointed by the parliament to act as President of Kyrgyzstan on October 15, 2020.

a) `The people ' and `the elite ' as nodal points. From the very beginning of his new political career, just after being released from prison, Japarov built his political discourse on the construction of the 'people' through the antagonism between 'the people' and 'the elite' along the vertical down / up axis claiming to represent 'the people' as an underdog of illegitimate 'elite' [22]. In Japarov 's interpretation, the Kyrgyz people are a victim of the corrupt officials who has literally robbed the people using criminal schemes by appropriating money from the budget (i.e., money that should serve the needs of `the people'). In an address dated October 21, 2020 (the only address on the official website of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic from October 2020 to January 2021), he stated:

Over the past 30 years, systemic corruption schemes have flourished in industries such as energy, customs and tax services, pharmaceuticals, licensing, subsoil use and others. In this regard, corrupt officials who organized criminal schemes, profiting from the common people, robbing them [...] I GIVE YOU 30 DAYS !!! I want you to disclose everything and provide real information about the available facts. Everything that was grabbed by you, I demand to return to the state treasury! [...] This is the demand of the people! This is the goal of the people who have entrusted me with the fate of the country [53].

This is a very vivid appeal in which Japarov not only claims to represent the people but also demands on behalf of the people and then (not included in the citation) also threatens with `the most stringent measures' on behalf of the people. Moreover, here we can see how an equivalent chain is being formulated: the people determined not through something positive they have in common, but through the fact that all of them were `robbed' by `the officials' [20, 22-24].

During the presidential election campaign, which began on November 14, 2020, Sadyr Japarov actively used the technique of engaging in correspondence polemics with anonymous opponents from among `corrupted officials' (although, he had never mentioned specific names). Howbeit, while arguing with this imaginary opposition, he appealed to `the people' as witnesses to `the crimes' of the past regime and blamed `the corrupted officials' who were in power before the revolution of 2020 for all the troubles. At a rally in Talas, he addressed the townspeople:

Many of the existing problems are [...] the result of bureaucratic delays and corruption schemes. Relocation and reconstruction of the cattle market, which you have been waiting for so long, solving the issue of flooding and launching drainage systems, renovating a school, etc. - all this is can be resolved very quickly. You just need to change the system [...] In the future, it will work on the principles of serving the people and responsibility to them! Sadyr Zhaparov: Byt' prezidentom Kyrgyzstana - sluzhit' narodu Kyrgyzstana! [Online]. AKIpress, 15 December 2020, available at https://kg.akipress.org/news:1668614, accessed 06 March 2021.

This way, the wide range of demands of various social groups, whether they concerned the renovation of a school or the reconstruction of a cattle market, was homogenized vis-a-vis `the corrupt officials' - a true outside of the excluded identity [20] in order to form `the people's identity'.

Deepening the gap between `the people ' and `the officials '. As De Cleen emphasizes, the category of people has to be opposed to 'the elite', or 'the establishment' by symbolic manners of pointing out the 'high' position of `elite' and its disconnection from the 'low'. It can include references to 'the elite' in its 'ivory tower', or to the well-oD neighborhoods where they live, the kinds of houses they live in, and the kind of cafйs and restaurants they visit [22]. In other words, populist logic requires drawing a gap between `the people' and `the elite' making this gap as profound as possible, ideally, completely insuperable. Japarov draws this gap, emphasizing kinship relations between `corrupted officials':

In our republic, about 250-300 families have settled `at the top' over the past 30 years. Only they are engaged in corruption, they steal from the budget. It is plainly visible. Everyone is visible. They know, and all the people know, that they are corrupt. Only they steal, only their children get jobs in the civil service, and this has been going on for decades [54].

It seems very interesting that Japarov exploits stereotypes about Kyrgyzstan as a country in which the politics and state institutions are subordinated to clan and kinship interests. Although the difference in Japarov's rhetoric lies in the fact that he calls patronage a characteristic feature of `the elite', i.e. `the corrupt officials'. At the same time, it is supposed that `the people' who are not associated with the `families at the top' do not participate in the vicious practice of patronage just because they do not have the appropriate personal network. Thus, through the idea of kinship, the biologisation of `the people' and `the elite' occurs constructing them as different groups with separate genealogy.

Special attention should also be paid to the words `the past 30 years', which produce more negative connotations for the image of `the corrupted officials' symbolically linking it to the era of chronic anomie (even without distinctions between the times of such leaders as Akayev and Bakiev). Japarov constantly claims that during the years of his presidency, the vicious practices from the past will be terminated:

For 30 years it was practiced that if someone [from `the elite'] does not get a position, then they immediately created a ministry [to appoint one as a minister]. They spend billions from the treasury, while not bringing any benefit to the people ... [now] we have reduced everything unnecessary, there are only 12 ministries left [55].

Accordingly, it will be finished with the practice of providing privileges through kinship:

... now is not the time to be at war or become related. Forget the past for the sake of the people, for the sake of the future state. Let's be patient. The Almighty is on the side of the patient. We attract to each ministry, not trough pull as before but hire specialists from these industries. Everyone must do their job [55].

Thus, the reader can get a feeling that there will be no `corrupt officials' soon. So, `the people' will restore their integrity and homogeneity or, in Laclau's words, their historical singularity [20]. However, the fact that this moment was carried over to an uncertain future only underlined the deep split between `the people' and `the elite' in the present.

c) Japarov as a populist leader. Finally, a common strategy for populist leaders is to legitimize their own claims to power by presenting themselves as the true voice of the people [10]. Japarov achieves this aim with two basic rhetorical techniques. On the one hand, he emphasizes the correspondence of his own life to what is defined as `the people's' way of life. The experience of being in prison is especially helpful for him in this regard. It works for Japarov as proof of his intimate connection with `the people' and, consequently, his profound understanding of `the people's' needs. In an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, Japarov said:

After I was released from the prison, as soon as the people appointed me as prime minister, I thought that God had sent me there on purpose to see who was in prison, their truth. 90-95 % of them are ordinary citizens. Not a single official, the son of an official, or relatives of officials is there. The 510 % of them are criminals who have devoted their entire lives to crime. And the 90 % are ordinary people: who stole a phone, who stole a chicken [54].

The same goal of forming the symbolic link between Japarov and `the people' had the constitutional reform initiated in parallel with the presidential elections. The essence of the proposed changes was to broaden the powers of the president at the expense of the parliament For more information about the constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan see Kyrgyz Parliament Approves Constitutional- Amendments Law In First Reading, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, available at: https://www.rferl.org/a7kyrgyz-parliament-approves-constitutional-amendments-law-in-first-reading/30992400.html, accessed 11 February 2021.. In the context of populist logic, it is highly important that the reform was explained by Japarov and his supporters as an act to protect `the people' from `the corrupt officials' who get their positions in the parliament by bribes and kin relations. The same was called the reason for the inability of parliamentary parties to work for `the people' [56]. In other words, the opposition between the president and the parliament was constructed as a reflection of the opposition between `the people' and `the corrupt officials'. As Japarov stated in his official election program, `now the president is personally responsible' to the people [57]. Therefore, the re-enforcement of the president's power symbolically meant the strengthening of `the people'. The amendments to the Constitution were approved on January 10, 2021, on the same day that Japarov was elected President of Kyrgyzstan. Thus, the populist logic received an institutional embodiment.

On the other hand, Japarov legitimized his claims emphasizing his separation from the `anti-popular' policy of the past. This is one of his Facebook posts in which he gets into polemics with unnamed opponents.

They personally proved that they had been stealing for thirty years, while forgetting about their duty to the people. From now on, we must learn to reckon with the people, and if someone does not want this, then we will teach [...] As it turned out, these people are accustomed to freely using the benefits of the people for their own purposes and to change the constitution solely in their own interests. And now, when they see that they are about to lose their free feeding trough, they began to fight desperately, arranging useless, hopeless rallies. In this vein, I would like to say: “Don't try, people woke up long ago and understood your ulterior motives long ago, and nothing will help you!” [58]

Here we have a vivid example of Laclau's empty signifier [20] since the reader is not given a positive definition of who `they' are, however, the reader can understand that `they' are not `the people' and Japarov stands apart from `them'.

Thus, Japarov's populist developed as another attempt to overcome post-Soviet anomie and create a new stable social order after two failures in 2005 and 2010. Notably, for this purpose, he draws on symbols from the Soviet past which is widely perceived as the era before the `last thirty years' of troubles. The Soviet symbolic footprint can be found in the concept of `corrupt officials' which has much in common with the communist party nomenklatura as an enemy of `the people's freedom' of the late 1980s. Moreover, it is clearly the Soviet tradition of understanding the nation in the spirit of ethno-nationalism that still dominates in Kyrgyzstan. Finally, there is no escaping the fact that the concepts of `robbing of the people's property', selfishness and nepotism, which make it possible to define `the people' as all those who are not involved in such `crimes', actually repeat the `deadly sins' of the `builder of communism' [28] and therefore associated with Soviet official morality.

All this explains why Japarov's project has a shortage of left or right, socialist or neoliberal content, since none of this has a symbolic meaning for Kyrgyz society. As an alternative, it draws on symbols from the Soviet past. Indeed, this is not just copying, but to a greater extent, a creative rethinking of outgoing ideas and symbols that are still circulating in society and have the potential to be rethought and upcycled in a new populist project. Therefore, in the next part of the paper, I am going to address the phenomenon of symbolic upcycling in the context of shaping Japarov's populist repertoire.

The upcycling of pre-existing symbols and meanings

One of the prominent researchers of nationalism Anthony D. Smith has continuously argued that nationalist identity is inevitably associated with the continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations. and the identification of individuals with that pattern and heritage [49, 59, 60]. Although populist discourse has a number of important differences from the nationalist, both are closely interconnected as well as related to the phenomenon of identity [23, 25, 61, 62]. Therefore, there is the reason, in the spirit of Smith's ethnosymbolic approach, to assume that populists cannot ignore the values, symbols and myths of the past commonly perceived as meaningful. At the same time, since the rise of populism is associated with anomie and the rejection of a certain `ontic order' [20], symbols cannot be directly borrowed from the past without some kind of rethinking or, to say metaphorically, upcycling.

Upcycling is a term from the industrial lexicon often defined as value-added recycling. This metaphor seems very appropriate for explaining the ability of populists to achieve broad popularity quickly and unexpectedly without profound ideological preparations. For example, in the case of Sadyr Japarov, it took only three months from the moment of his release from prison until he was elected president of Kyrgyzstan. The point is that symbolic upcycling, like the industrial one, saves resources on the production of social myths in a time when social reproduction depends less and less on repetitive practices and requires the constant production of social myths [63]. Japarov's myth, as shown above, is a kind of myth about the `golden age', the myth about the era before the `last thirty years' of troubles, the era when the people were a singularity, i.e. there were no `corrupt officials'. This myth is formed with the help of three constitutive elements: the people's democracy, the people's nationalism, and the Japarov's self-performance as leader of the people's origin.

The people's democracy. Researchers usually agree that the claim to regain the people's control over political decision-making which is believed to had been usurped by elites is the crucial element of populist's rhetoric [11, 64-66]. In the context of the Kyrgyz agenda, it eloquently expressed by Japarov's idea of constitutional reform. As mentioned above, the reform aims to significantly reduce the powers of the parliament and, accordingly, the parliamentary parties, which Japarov has repeatedly accused of being unable to represent the interests of the people:

All versions of the Constitution, including the current one, stipulate that the source of power is the people. However, in reality, the people of Kyrgyzstan can only exercise their power once every five years by voting in elections. But in the elections, the votes are traded and then the government forgets about the people for five years. The leaders of the country are doing malign deeds, engaging in corruption, and the people will learn about their deeds only after a few years Sadyr Zhaparov: Kurultaj - eto samaya sut' pryamoj demokratii. VESTI.KG, 24 December 2020, available at: https://vesti.kg/politika/item/80041-sadyr-zhaparov-kurultaj-eto-samaya-sut-pryamoj-demokratii.html, accessed 06 March 2021..

Not surprisingly this initiative raised a wave of criticism precisely from the point of view of compliance with democratic norms. However, Japarov had a ready-made answer - the People's Kurultai Historically, Kurultai, first introduced in the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, was a congress of Mongolian and Turkic princes and nobility. At kurultais important state issues were resolved including such as the election of a new khan. In Central Asia, kurultais remained in this form until the beginning of the 20th century. Since the end of the 20th century, the term `kurultai' has been used in the regions with the Turkic-speaking population as a synonym for `parliament' in the sense of a body of popular representation. - a deliberative, supervisory assembly with the mandate to hear the reports of the President, the Torag of the Jogorku Kenesh (the Chair of the Kyrgyz parliament), and to make proposals on the malpractice of officials. As Japarov himself stated:

Kurultai is a time-tested advisory institution and control body. We, the Kyrgyz, understand it at the genetic level. Kurultai is the very essence of direct democracy, just like a referendum. When the president, government and parliament are ANNUALLY accountable to citizens, it will be difficult for those in power to cheat. A representative from each village will be able to come and ask for the promises made by high-ranking officials Sadyr Zhaparov: Kurultaj - eto samaya sut' pryamoj demokratii. VESTI.KG, 24 December 2020, available at: https://vesti.kg/ politika/item/80041-sadyr-zhaparov-kurultaj-eto-samaya-sut-pryamoj-demokratii.html, accessed 06 March 2021..

In the history of contemporary Kyrgyzstan, the People's Kurultai was not a Japarov's invention. The institution was already assembled in Kyrgyzstan in 1994 and 1995, although, the only discussed issue was relations between ethnic groups. Later, in 2001, the kurultais (in plural) were brought back for local communities with the principles of recruitment and functions resembling the soviets of people's deputies of the last years of the Soviet Union For more information about the People's Kurultai of 2001 see Ukaz prezidenta Kyrgyzskoj respubliki O merah po povysheniyu roli narodnyh kurultaev predstavitelej mestnyh soobshchestv Kyrgyzskoj Respubliki v upravlenii delami mestnogo znacheniya. UP 152. Kyrgyzstan, available at: http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/2152, accessed 02 March 2021; to compare with the soviets of people's deputies of the Soviet Union see Fokin, A. Vybory v SSSR v 1960-1970-e gg.: simulyaciya ili element demokratii? Soviet History Discussion Papers, 5, 2014, available at: https://perspectivia.net/ servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/ploneimport_derivate_00011424/fokin_elections.doc.pdf, accessed 01 March 2021.. Like the soviets, the kurultais were not supposed to be a body ruled by professional politicians and parties, they have no place for party struggles, complex procedural issues, and long debates. Kurultais were presented as a tribune where `ordinary people' could speak, and the authorities would hear their opinion and act accordingly. In other words, both were supposed to be institutions of direct rather than representative democracy. However, in practice, like the soviets, kurultais were completely under the control of the authorities and used to influence public opinion to consolidate a position and to legitimize unpopular policies. It is very notable in this context that during the Tulip revolution of 2005, the kurultais were organized by opposition to create solidary and purposive incentives to unite different groups of protestors [67] - precisely the same role was played by the soviets of people's deputies in the USSR in 1989-1991.

In the Japarov's constitution project the system of local kurultais was headed with the People's Kurultai resembling the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz SSR. Although the latter had legislative powers, which were not provided for the former, this difference does not seem significant, since in the Soviet political practice the Supreme Soviets of the national republics did not have their own voice and followed the course of the Communist party [68]. The more important is that reform looks like the transition of power from the parliament which symbolizes `the elite' to the People's Kurultai resembling `the people's democracy' of the Soviet times with an emphasis on its direct, majority character (it does not matter if it was actually a democracy or not).

The people's nationalism. The relation between populism and nationalism is still a subject of active discussion among researchers [23; 25; 69; 70]. And although most scholars agree that these are two separate phenomena, the question remains about the degree of their correlation and the possibility of separating the first from the second, or, in other words, the perspectives to get pure populism without nationalism [25; 70]. In the context of these debates, the case of Kyrgyzstan is an example of the inextricable connection between nationalist and populist discourse and their mutual reinforcement with common symbols and meanings because the concepts of people and nation are widely used in Kyrgyzstan as synonyms, although their meaning is not identical.