Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me first to thank the Secretariat of Turkic American Alliance for the initiative taken and organizing this meeting today. I thank also leadership of the Turkic American Alliance for promoting our bilateral cultural cooperation of the Turkic countries in United Stats of America. It is a great honor and privilege to me to be here with you today. I was asked to speak today on my Country’s political developments, and challenges we faced during the last 20 years of our independence.

Gaining independence for Kyrgyzstan had been a historical event for us.

On August 31, 1991 - the Declaration of the State Independence of the Kyrgyz Republic was announced, on May 5, 1993 - the first Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic as an independent sovereign state was adopted. On May 10, 1993 - Kyrgyzstan for the first time among the former Soviet countries introduced its own national currency – the SOM.

The political situation changed; the country had embraced democracy and started the process of liberalization of the economy and social life.  Kyrgyzstan became a member of the UN and many other international organizations. During the first years of independence, Kyrgyzstan was at the forefront of political and socio-economic reforms among the former Soviet Union states.

Over the 20 years of independence, we went through thorny and tortuous paths of development. In history, as we know, there is no highroad. The transition period was very difficult: from a socialist planned economy to a market economy, from totalitarianism to democracy. At the turn of the century, all the countries of the Eurasian continent, including the republics of the former Union, went through that path.

In some countries the transition was smoother and therefore faster than in the other countries.

            We experienced two turning points. First, the revolution of 2005, when the first president was exiled. Then the revolution of 2010, when the second president was ousted.

The main cause of the two people's revolutions was a bitter conflict between the society and the government. The authorities placed themselves above their own people, making themselves unaccountable to the people.

They ceased expressing the people's interests. It is the violation of the principles of freedom and justice that blew up the masses and pushed them to oppose the dictatorship of the president, the sole control of the country, and the transformation of the state power into one family business.

Our fundamental law - the Constitution of 1993 was subjected to endless amendments and revisions. The dismissal of the Parliament initiated many changes and rewriting of the Constitution on the eve of elections and referendums in favor of personal interests of both former presidents.

The last twenty years are the years of searching, incredible hardships and difficulties, complete change of ownership, learning and accepting of the new forms of management and gaining market knowledge.

The changing of the economic landscape, the new trade routes, the entry to the business sphere of hundreds of thousands of new producers and traders were all incredibly difficult processes.

The survival in a complex environment completely dependent on petroleum, gas, and sometimes electricity  threw us back to the pre-Soviet era more often than not. This remains painful for us today! The failures and twists on our road of a true democratic model building had been painful and bitter experience during the 20 years for us all, for the entire country. They led to loosening of the state institutions.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens raised their voices in the fight against injustice and impunity for crimes against people in all parts of the country. It became clear that democratization, the awakening of the masses towards controlling their destiny and a family-clan power - are the sworn enemies.

This was confirmed during the regime of Bakiyev. That time around even more disastrous in more pernicious forms of criminality and corruption swept through the country, embedded in the supreme power, the waves of raiding and redistribution of property, the most ruthless arbitrariness of the family and clan structure, the repression of the opposition, the rampant shadow economy, the drug trafficking, the violation of the constitutional norms, the folding away of the democratic institutions and the free press, the establishment of double standards in foreign and domestic policy.

  The authoritarian, family-clan periods of the two presidential rules that accumulated enormous economic and social problems, and contradictions inevitably led to people's revolutions and fierce collisions. 

The April revolution revealed all the problems, contradictions and conflicts in the society, including inter-ethnic relations.

We have lost hundreds of innocent people, fires destroyed thousands of homes, and small businesses.

 Under the leadership of the President Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan’s Government managed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

   Ladies and Gentlemen,

Transitional term meant the adoption of the new Constitution and changing the model of governance, holding transparent and democratic parliamentary elections, forming of  the executive branch of power in line with the new Constitution, and reforming the judiciary system while making it free of corrupt individuals.

The last stage is the presidential elections on 30th October 2011 and founding of the peaceful power transmission tradition in our country. Thus the legitimization of all systems of the state governance will be completed.

The New Constitution, approved at the Referendum on 27 June, 2010 institutes the first parliamentarian republic in Central Asia. The Interim Government only three months after ascension to power has transmitted its mandate to the elected President and Care-taker Government.

All political parties, including oppositional and those representatives of trooped regime, have had a freedom for the participation in these elections. Thus began the new form of political culture in the country. We have been shown in the region a sample of free and faire elections highly appreciated by the international community.

The Care Taker Government succeeded in coping with its tasks: the year was closed without internal debt, wages, pensions and allowances were paid in time and fully, and the GDP only declined by 1.4 percent while the socio-economic situation got stabilized.

Thus, the Government that was formed by the coalitional majority of the Parliament at the end of last year obtained good conditions for launching its work as the New Year was started practically from a clean slate.

Nevertheless, the Coalition Government started its duties in the tough post-crisis period and apploed incredible efforts in order to keep socio-economic stability and sustain the challenges of vital decisions on issues of raising living standards of the population, yet also dealing with the burden of previous years.

Unfortunately, during the last 20 years we lost more than benefited and destroyed rather than constructed due to the reshuffling of economic reforms. Often following blindfold receipts we practically lost a national industry. Total privatization took us to the real deindustrialization of the country and now the productive capacities of giant-industries such as factories of Lenin, Frunze, Physpribory, Osh cotton and paper-mill and Osh silk–spinning are empty, destroyed or re-profiled for different markets.

 The last 20 years we spent not only for dismantling but also for established the new productions on the ruin of previous years thanks to the energy, hard work and bold ideas of hundreds and thousands entrepreneurs.

Today we can see clearly the outlines of progress in transport, energy, mining industry and agriculture sectors of national economy. Rebuilding of clothing industry with 300 000 strong labor force and gaining our country branding in the foreign markets is a brilliant example of our growth. The telecommunications industry’s average annual 20 percent growth and our programmers’ successful work as out-sourced specialists for worlds’ big companies demonstrate the great capacity of the country that remains to be tapped.

Here is a few figures on the economic development today. During the first half of this year the GDP growth was 5.5 percent that was achieved due to the rise in the industrial production turnover with the growth rate of 113.9 percent and the growth of commodities and services turnover with growth rate of 103.5 percent, the agricultural production grew as well. There has been a considerable improvement in the national revenue generation and during the first half of this year the total volume of taxes collected grew by 125.2 percent, and those of customs duties - by 146.9 percent. The forecasts of the Government are optimistic in regards to the financial results of this year. Most importantly the Government is to maintain the trends and growth rates in the economy.

The unprecedented increase of wages for social sphere workers has been the most significant decision of this year. Our teachers, doctors, artisans’ and junior serving staff received the wages 2-3 times higher than before. The Government is planning the next stage of increases of pensions and allowances. The Budget has become socially-oriented and the social sector’s expenditures account for 41.3 percent of total charges.

  Today, a top priority task of governance is recovery of people’s trust and respect to authorities not only towards the Head of the State but also to the Parliament, to the Government, to the judicial system, to the law enforcement bodies and to the local administrations.  This lack of trust got accumulated not only in one year, and its remedy may take more than one year. I would like to note that the parliamentary system of governance has considerably maintained the transparency and accountability to the authorities to the society despite a seeming chaos, lack of systemic approach and recurring public scandals. The long awaited change of the governing personnel, including some Ministers and some other high positions, began to take shape.

To ensure transparency of activities of ministries and departments we have begun to establish public supervisory boards. This is a new institution, and a lot of work is yet to be done for it to take roots and to achieve relevant effect. However, the efforts of the public supervisory board members are pleasant in the field of the budget transparency, the openness of the law enforcement agencies, and the information accessibility to the civil society members.

 In the centre of public attention these days is the reform of the judicial system. Over the past 20 years, attempts were made to reform the judicial system, but all of them were halted, and everything was done to keep the judiciary in the bridle.

The controllability of the judicial system became a custom - the judges are instructed on decisions to be made not only on the phone, but by invitations to the high offices, to. Corruption of the courts has undermined the fairness in society, put down the slope not only the economic future, but the entire constitutional system of the country.

 Immediately the next day after April 7 provisional government was under pressure from large numbers of complaints of unjust decisions of courts, their red tape. We dissolved the Constitutional Court dismissed 10 judges of the Supreme Court, more than 40 local judges were released, so began the process of cleansing the system of dishonest judges.

Today  - we have a historic opportunity to really upgrade the judiciary, open the way for an honest, highly professional, always improving and growing, and indifferent citizens to all levels of judicial power. The country has ten thousand people with good experiences in various legal specializations, including more than 2,800 licensed lawyers. Our universities annually release more than four thousand lawyers in different fields.

The people have high demands to the authorities, and some expectations that have not been betrayed. It paid for these changes at a high price - over a hundred lives of its heroes. In order to raise the authority of the courts - and they are now at the lower rows of the poll information that the courts have become the skeleton of the law and support of the human rights, we need a strong mass appeal, the formation of a new judiciary, scrapping all corporate ligaments, corruption schemes, phone law, political patronage.

We are told - the courts are just as the society is. Yet people are fed up with the current system of justice!  We believe that- the success of any country, stability and its future is firmly connected with the fair courts.

 In few days  the presidential elections will take place. The high stakes and the rush around the presidential post clearly demonstrate the critical significance rather than the magnificence of this position within the power structure.

Even long before the election race some of its participants declared their critical views about the new Constitution and the necessity of changing the form of governance. They are speculating on existing gaps of the Constitution, which could be rectified by laws without any politicization. They are taking attempts to discredit the parliamentary government . They are trying to bring us back to the constitutional crossroads.

  Each process requires a certain time. In order for the parliamentary system to reveal its efficiency a rolling distance is required. Only historical time can demonstrate the evident advantages and probable drawbacks  of a parliamentary system for our social and economic development.

 I personally believe that the return to the presidential model of government will lead to chaos, will hold back the country’s development and we most likely will be overflowed by the third wave of autocracy, corruption and curtail of democratic reforms.

 Dear guests,

Essential international developments and disturbances have taken place during the last 20 years.  The situation in the Central Asian region, complicated challenges and threats standing before the country, require from us to strengthen the border security, to have military efficient army, highly mobilized force authorities and ordinary citizens against acts of terrorism and extremists tricks.

 International terrorism actively involves for its operations domestic radical religious organizations. By involving in illegal religious and partial networks, actively spreading its instructions and information, especially via internet, Islamic extremists are imposing their ideas of decisive change of the existing constitutional order with any means including coercive actions.

In 1999-2000 the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has invaded Batken and Osh oblasts of the Kyrgyz Republic in order to create the Islamic caliphate and the further spread of its influence in the region. Our soldiers fought against the international terrorists. They have shown courage and fortitude and defended their homeland - Kyrgyzstan.

We in Kyrgyzstan are well aware that in this interdependent world of modern combat and transnational threats we must only be together - in the unity of national efforts at the regional and global scales.

Security and stability in the region contributes to our close cooperation within the CIS, CSTO, SCO, OSCE and UN.

All these years - at the ups and downs - the international community was with us. International financial institutions, countries such as USA, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey has always been supporting us, and have had a huge investment, financial and technical assistance.

Kyrgyzstan's economy is closely linked to the markets of the EurAsEC countries. Kyrgyzstan is also member to WTO.  We believe that free movement of labor, resources, capital, services on a large Eurasian space are needed to Kyrgyzstan.

 Presidential election which is to be held on 30th October - the big test closely watched by the international community. We believe that Kyrgyzstan will succeed.

I thank you for your attention.