Little time has passed since the publication of the Decree of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic on Kurultay. The mass media, especially television and radio, are trying to organize some kind of discussion of the upcoming Kurultay. Expectations of ordinary citizens, officials, experts and members of the organizing committee have been informed through the media and various forums. These expectations range from the most enthusiastic to openly negative ones. Time will show whose expectations were accurate. Making analysis of the upcoming large-scale events is, obviously, not a task for ordinary citizens. But ordinary citizens have the right and even obligation to more or less clearly understand the goals and objectives of this event. Already, the name of this event - Kurultay of Consent - and the objective, announced by the President, - "civilian consolidation and the balance of interests and opinions when making decisions"- should make people interested in the event. Information, available today, does not allow full understanding of the essence and purpose of Kurultay, and what the role of an ordinary citizen is.

The developers of the Kurultay idea should work more actively, informing the population about the nature, purpose and objectives of this newly established institution, and not in abstract categories but in specific categories. Every citizen should understand his role in the establishment and functioning of this institution, and how it will affect his own life. Meanwhile, there is no mass optimism about Kurultay in the country.

"So said - so done" ... and first questions

The news about creation of the Kurultay and Presidential Council became known several months ago, when President K. Bakiyev initiated a reform of public administration. On January 21, 2010, a decree was issued on holding the first Kurultay during Nooruz; the organizing committee was created, and the goals of the new body were articulated.

Reading the Presidential decree, as well as the comments of experts and members of the organizing committee, gave the impression of some "understatement." The message that Kyrgyzstan is in a new phase of development in connection with the presidential course to upgrade the country, and is facing global and regional issues, must be understood as an external threat or foreboding, which should serve as a civilian consolidation.

Of the four goals of Kurultay, mentioned in the presidential decree, three are more or less understandable. They are relevant to the tasks of achieving civilian consolidation, strengthening of tolerance in our society and preserving the culture of the Kyrgyz people. The fourth goal - ensuring a balance between tradition and innovation - raises the question: what is it? Does this apply mainly to cultural development (if one relies on the general context of the document), or to political and economic development, or is it just a general statement?

There is also an understatement in formulating a list of questions that the members of Kurultay may discuss. For example, the decree states that Kurultay can discuss the issues related to the activities of state bodies and local authorities. It is not clear how one should understand this - in a wide sense, i.e. as the right to raise questions about the reform of government bodies, change in their functions, etc., or in a narrow sense, i.e. as the right to approve or disapprove of their activities?

The decree also identified eight areas of questions that can be discussed by Kurultay. Six of the eight questions refer to humanitarian and cultural development, inter-ethnic and inter-religious interaction. Two other questions do not fit in this category. So, it turns out that Kurultay may raise the problems of our relations with neighboring countries, the problems of ecology and the use of natural resources. Then the question is - is it possible within the framework of Kurultay to discuss the relations, for example, with countries of Europe and America? Can Kurultay raise the issues of economic development, the choice of countries-economic partners, and the use of investment, taxation, national budget priorities, human rights, and others? Which criteria were used in selecting the range of issues for public discussion? Many people would like to know the answers to these and other questions.

Deliberative Democracy as it is

Kurultay is another occasion to reflect on whether democracy is possible in Kyrgyzstan. There are different views on this matter. Proponents of liberal democracy have long been disappointed, and their answer is "impossible", at least, in the near future. Supporters of the ideas of sovereign democracies and democracies with national specific features, may say "yes, possible". In general, democracy turned out to be a diverse phenomenon. And now we may be on the verge of creating our own special Kyrgyz model of democracy. But first le me give a little background.

Without going too much into the theory of democracy, let's remember that at the turn of 20th and 21st centuries, there appeared a new very popular paradigm of democracy - deliberative -, although its founding concepts are not new; they have ancient roots (in Athenian democracy). The essence of deliberative democracy is that political decisions in a democratic state are made by public discussion among free and equal citizens. Although at different times, the approaches to the question of who should have the right to participate in the discussion were different, the essence remained unchanged. But it was not before the 21st century that the idea of deliberative democracy revived with new vigor, and interestingly enough, it revived even in the countries that would never be considered truly democratic. It happened when institutions of liberal democracy endured certain crises. Citizens have become increasingly alienated from politics and they no longer believe in political parties and politicians. Attitude towards politics and politicians has become cynical; levels of political participation of the population began to decline; and the state began to lose its legitimacy. Many people talked about the return of liberalism with moral principles.

So, there reappeared the idea that improving the process of political decision-making is possible if various groups of citizens (and not just professional politicians or experts) discuss key social issues. Proponents of such ideas often say that even with well-functioning representative democracy there must be some space for deliberative democracy. Thus, in political science there emerged the notion of deliberative democracy. One can find other terms related essentially to the same process in the literature: "discursive democracy," "consultative democracy," "communicative collective rationale," "democracy of the rational discourse," public consultations," etc. Deliberative democracy is the process when citizens, representing different groups (racial, national, geographic, age, religious, etc.), have an opportunity to participate in management and public administration through deliberative forums.

Deliberative democracy can exist in different forms and in various combinations, complementing other mechanisms of democratic representation. If a decade ago, consultative forums were dealing mainly with local issues, now there are many examples where such forums resolve the issues of national scale.

Among deliberative democratic theorists of the late 1990s - early 2000s, a very famous one is James Fishkin, a scientist at Stanford University. Fishkin is the author of a new research technology, connecting the existing practice of public opinion research with the theory of deliberative democracy. This technology is called "deliberative polling." In Russian literature, one may find the translation "enriched public opinion." The essence of this technology is that participants are selected on the basis of Gallup methods, a basic survey is conducted, and then participants are invited to meet at a specific location, get acquainted with the problem and then discuss it under the supervision of an experienced moderator who does not interfere with the essence of the debate. Then a second poll of "enriched" or informed opinion is conducted, and the results of this enriched poll are used in policy formulation and decision-making. Fishkin Technology has become very popular: by 2007 he had conducted more than fifty such surveys in the United States, Australia, Great Britain, China, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countries.

Fishkin polling is only one form of deliberative decision-making technology. There are other types, for example, city assemblies, assembly of citizens in the municipalities, civic boards, national forums discussing some pressing issues, roundtables of political forces, civil society, etc.

Kurultay is the beginning of the "authoritative" Kyrgyz democracy?

So, Kyrgyzstan has put forward its idea of deliberative democracy - creating an institution, which convenes citizens, delegated from administrative-territorial, religious, ethnic communities and representatives of culture and education. It is worth noting that many "diseases" of Western democracy, including the crisis of confidence in political institutions, civic apathy, cynicism about politics, also exist in our society, and even in exaggerated forms. Therefore, the idea of deliberative institutions and civil society participation in decision-making is, perhaps, a timely measure. However, any democratic initiative may be positive or negative, depending on the circumstances.

According to Sultan Zhumagulov, the head of the expert-analytical support of the Secretariat of President KR, this Kurultay "will enable people to speak openly about their everyday concerns and suggest good recommendations to the authorities of Kyrgyzstan."

Principle of selection of Kurultay delegates is interesting. "We need to have an authoritative council on making authoritative decisions," said the Director of the Institute of Strategic Analysis and Evaluation under the President of KR Sergei Masaulov.

By the way, the problem of authority is not so simple. Who can be called an authoritative person? Our society is fragmented, and it is getting more and more fragmented on the basis of economic and social values. A person may be the authority for a part of our population, while for the other part of the population, he may be a nobody. Many people would agree that authoritative people in local communities are often the ones with certain resources (wealth, power, etc.). And then, we need to consider the question: what about marginalized segments of the population? How does Kurultay resolve the problem of representation of interests and views of all sectors of our population and possible exclusion of some groups from decision-making process, for example, the poor, or women, etc.? The democratic nature of the process may be undermined by serious problems of power and domination not only in the selection of delegates at the local level, but also within the already established deliberative arena. Targeting the creation of "authoritative democracy," we must think on how not to turn it into an authoritative deliberative dictatorship.

Historical analogies with the times when Kyrgyz tribes elected their Khans during Kurultays and discussed the questions of peace or war announcements, collective protection against external enemies, as well as the uniqueness of the nomadic democracy of Kyrgyz people, unwittingly suggest that Kurultay of influential people could potentially be associated with the ancient Kurultays in their functions, despite the dramatic difference between the society of that time and modern society in Kyrgyzstan. We can imagine what "a stunning plan for conservative renewal of the country" is awaiting us.

Many commentators believe that the presidential quota of 150 members, including representatives of culture, science and art, is good, because those members must defend the plan of actions proposed by the President. There are fears about the fact that 20% of the members of Kurultay, appointed by the President, would form a kind of interest group in this new body. Are those fears groundless? Perhaps, it would more democratic to give the right of choosing delegates to the professional and creative unions and associations themselves. In this case, there is more chance that both mainstream and outsider groups of culture, arts and business will be presented in Kurultay. It was said that part of the political parties would constitute the presidential quota, because they were also public figures. I wonder if there is a way for those leaders of political parties, who are not famous public or cultural figures, to become members of Kurultay?

Nation-building Project?

An overview of some comments, made through the media and the Internet, has shown that expectations about Kurultay range from the enthusiastic and romantic ones to moderate and negative ones. Unfortunately, the television media prefer not to cover polar views, they mostly provide explanatory and generally positive views about Kurultay.

Explanatory interpretations by representatives of the organizing committee about Kurultay are often eclectic. There is an attempt to link Kurultay with ancient nomadic traditions and with modern political technologies of the deliberative democracy in European countries.

The reader can easily see in the text of the Presidential decree on Kurultay a special emphasis on the construction and consolidation of the nation. This repeated emphasis on the idea of Kurultay's links with the ancestral traditions of the Kyrgyz, calling it the institution of collective democracy, and even its name - "Kurultay of Agreement" - suggests that the main task of Kurultay is to be a nation-building project. It is to be a project of cohesion of peoples, living in Kyrgyzstan, around the state-forming ethnos, as they say.

Of course, there is nothing unexpected in this. Kyrgyzstan is a young country, and the problems of construction of civil nation in Kyrgyzstan, of common identity for all citizens of Kyrgyzstan are topical. Similar problems exist in other new states that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Everyone knows that today there is intense debate about national politics in neighboring Kazakhstan. There is a question of the rights of the "titular nation," which, according to a certain part of society, will be adversely affected if they use the concept of a civil nation.

If the main task of Kurultay is to consolidate all citizens, the question is: "Is our society ready for this?" Probably, it would have been better to organize this discussion in smaller formats - among experts, political scientists, analysts, among the public chamber, NGOs, public associations, political parties, and finally, among the media? Another interesting question is whether a concrete plan accelerating the nation-building process, prepared by the Presidential team, will be proposed for discussion. And what is the process of discussion; what would be the practice of applying the recommendations of the Kurultay in policy decisions?

And more questions ...

Practical questions of Kurultay organization are no less interesting. How would they organize the process of discussion among such a large group of people? Who will be moderators of the debate? Why are there mainly representatives of state structures in the organizing committee? Why is it they cannot make explanations on the procedures for nominating delegates and the organization of the event more open and accessible? Why is it that the memo on elected people's representatives cannot be widely published? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to conduct some informational work before nomination of the candidates? Given the time frame, it seems that everything is done in great haste. Local councils must finish the nomination of candidates by February 16. And also, no one knows how much money will be spent on the conduction of Kurultay. Announcement of the competition for the manufacture of delegates' badges is also perplexing, such actions bring back the era of socialism. Apparently, it is necessary for people, so that they recognize their "heroes."

Instead of conclusion

The policy principles to balance traditions and innovations, and to balance interests and opinions are not good and not bad per se. It all depends on what practical solutions will be found to implement these principles in life. Deliberative democracy may be very valuable, if it doesn't turn into a purely traditional instrument.

As the process has already started, it is important to understand the goal of the proposed initiative. This will help assess realistically the chances of Kurultay, either as a means of democracy development, or as a nation consolidation project. The Kurultay organizers have the task of informing people in the shortest time possible, and this information should be as full as possible. Otherwise, this Kurultay, aimed at unification of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan, may instead contribute to further split and mistrust among the people.

The task of experts and analysts is to use an important resource - address to common citizens. It is not sufficient to discuss the matter with each other or with the authorities. It is important to address and inform our citizens.

Anar Musabaeva, independent analyst