Less Flower, More Sun? President-Backed Initiative To Change Flag Causes Outcry In Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK — To some, the new flag proposal resembled the spine-covered burs of the horse chestnut fruit while others saw the head of the mace weapon used by medieval combatants to bludgeon their foes in battle.

But for all the mocking memes and genuine indignation, Kyrgyzstan’s flag appears set for a makeover, after President Sadyr Japarov backed a parliamentary initiative to change its design and lawmakers passed the first reading of a concurrent draft law this week.

The question then is why? Or perhaps more pertinently, why now?

According to parliament speaker Nurlan Shakiev, a co-initiator of the bill to change the flag that reached parliament in late September, the answer lies in aesthetics.

Namely, the wavy solar rays that emanate from the flag’s “tunduk” centerpiece — the object at the apex of a Kyrgyz yurt, or nomadic tent — look too similar to the petals of a sunflower.

Japarov’s office backed this finding almost immediately, with the president suggesting in October that the sunflower likeness had long been a topic of discussion in Kyrgyz society — and not in a good way.

“There have even been cases when foreigners who came to visit us said that large amounts of sunflowers must be grown in our country,” Japarov insisted in comments to the state news agency Kabar.

That could be problematic because the Kyrgyz word for sunflower, “kunkarama,” is used as a metaphor for something or someone that is dependent, and “bends to the sun” — a fact that Japarov alluded to in the Kabar interview.

“To be honest, since gaining independence we have been heavily dependent on the outside world. So maybe it’s time to reconsider the appearance of our flag,” he maintained.

But the president hasn’t merely supported the proposal.

After Shakiev and another lawmaker put forth a new version of the flag that caused anger and comparisons with all kinds of thorny plants, Japarov and his team hit the drawing board and came up with an alternative to the alternative.

And it is a flag closer to the president’s vision — still with straight rays, but slightly less bur-like — that is likely to be the final version, with lawmakers passing a first reading of the draft law with 66 votes to eight on November 29.

A poll by RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service with more than 40,000 votes and counting, meanwhile, showed around 80 percent of respondents want to keep the existing flag.

Nothing Better To Do, Or Grand Distraction?

Successive popular revolutions in Kyrgyzstan brought a glut of nation-building initiatives as new administrations look to make their mark on a post-Soviet independence that has little to show for it in the way of economic success.

A common complaint is that such proposals like the one to change the flag show that officials and parliamentarians “have nothing better to do” despite a multitude of pressing problems in Kyrgyzstan.

After the country’s second revolution in 2010, a new government and an emboldened parliament brimmed with ideas to set the country back on its proper spiritual and political path.

Some initiatives — like the call to tear down a statue of a winged, female figure holding aloft a tunduk, because holding a tunduk is a patriarchal preserve, lawmakers and other public figures argued — were successful.

Others, like the initiative to change the background color of Kyrgyzstan’s flag from the current “bloody” red to blue — or rename the capital Bishkek after the country’s mythical hero, Manas — never made the cut.

Yet there is another more conspiratorial, but still popular view, which is that these inevitably emotive debates are actively triggered in order to distract from other — more underhand — moves being made by the government.

In this vein, journalist and legal expert Semetei Amanbekov warned on Facebook on October 25 that “the flag and other nonsense initiatives” are a useful way of deflecting attention from a very controversial law on “foreign representatives,” akin to a Russian-style law on foreign agents that has drawn widespread international criticism.

That was the same day the foreign representatives bill passed a first reading and — naturally — the same day Japarov gave his detailed comments on the flag-changing initiative to Kabar.

“The first step has been taken toward the complete destruction of independent media and progressive NGOs [on] the road to the country’s isolation,” Amanbekov said at the time.

Nevertheless, the journalist is now part of the wave of social media users who have posted profile photos of themselves with the current flag in opposition to the move to change to a new banner.

‘Not Seeing, Not Listening’

More than three years after being catapulted from a prison cell to the presidency during post-election unrest, former opposition figure Japarov has proven one of the most transformational of the country’s six presidents and — thus far — one of the most popular.

Constitutional changes passed in 2021 cut the stronger parliament that was established in 2010 back down to size, and significantly expanded the powers of Japarov’s presidential office.

Also thrown out was the stipulation that prevented presidents from running for reelection — a trailblazing change in a region where presidents stay in office until they die.

This month, a new body that is not popularly elected but which chimes with Kyrgyz history and traditions — the People’s Kurultai — is expected to enter the political fray.

Critics view the new body as a probable echo chamber for the president and his allies and yet another way of keeping the diminished legislature in check.

It is difficult to argue that a majority of Kyrgyz — many of whom found the post-2010 parliaments bloated and useless — are in any major way troubled by these moves.

National polling done in May under the aegis of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute indicated that 78 percent of respondents approved of the overall direction the country was taking.

That is down from 85 percent in the spring of 2022 but still significantly higher than the results of polls going back as far as 2007.

And yet analysts still argue that this administration is falling into the same traps as its predecessors by ramping up crackdowns on civil society, jailing well-known politicians, and targeting independent journalists in a period when economic pressure appears to be growing.

In recent months, authorities have attracted outrage for arresting a 70-year-old woman and a single mother for expressing political views on social media, while a 20-year old blogger is awaiting a potential jail sentence of up to seven years after he reposted a video of a politician criticizing Japarov.

In light of these and other developments, and regardless of its motivations, the flag-change bid looks potentially risky, especially given the fact that public opinion on the initiative is — at best — divided.

Kyrgyz parliamentary speaker Shakiev pledged that “everything will be taken into consideration” before any definitive move is made on the flag.

In October, he cited conversations with the flag’s original creators and claimed they were also unhappy about how the central emblem had changed over the years.

But one of those authors, Bekbosun Zhaichybekov, claims Shakiev misinterpreted him.

While he had indeed previously called on officials to ensure “control” over the design in its reproductions, he was categorically against swapping the wavy solar rays for the straight ones, he told Kaktus Media.

Of the parliamentarians to raise objections to the move, visually impaired Dastan Bekeshev, a persistent critic of the government, admitted that he had never even seen the national flag but, like many citizens, doubted that it was hindering the country’s development.

His colleague, Tazabek Ikramov, quizzed Shakiev about how much the flag change would cost the state budget.

Shakiev said that other than flags flying in the country’s cities and at Kyrgyzstan’s foreign embassies, the changes would be implemented gradually. There would be no additional burden on the state budget, he claimed, thanks to the costs being met by unnamed “sponsors.”

Mirlan Samyikojo, another lawmaker against changing the flag, argued that the decision was one of “state importance” and therefore required a popular referendum.

But he said on the day of the bill’s first reading his views were overridden in the most literal sense when another lawmaker voted in favor of the new flag on his behalf.

“This bill is being passed by deception,” Samyikojo said. “Of the people, 90 percent are against changing the flag. We are not seeing them. We are not listening to them.”