CIAO DATE: 03/04

Central Asian Leadership Succession: When, Not If

Abstract

In the next 10 years, leadership succession will emerge as the most important political issue in Central Asia. With the exception of Tajikistan, where a protracted and bloody civil war in the 1990s followed the death of its first post-Soviet president, Central Asia has been ruled by Soviet-era leaders. They have proven to be neither competent reformers nor popular politicians. They are likely to be remembered for their firm hold on power, but that hold has yet to translate into a long-term legacy of stability. The challenge for the next generation of Central Asian leaders—of assuring stability and security through systemic change—promises to be greater than it is today.

Unpopular and mired in allegations of corruption, the current generation of Central Asian leaders have proven themselves nonetheless. They have maintained a measure of stability, which no one at the time of the Soviet breakup took for granted. As they did so, some leaders introduced significant economic reforms and tolerated limited political opposition. Others have accepted neither political nor economic reform and turned their countries into dictatorships.

It is not clear at this point that the successor generation will be up to the difficult tasks of maintaining a modicum of internal stability and sustaining complex diplomatic efforts abroad. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the next generation of leaders will prove capable of making up for the shortcomings of the incumbents.

Leadership succession will be a delicate, complicated process, which the United States can best facilitate by a clear articulation of its interests, intentions, and commitments.

Full text (PDF, 6 pages, 2.26 MB)