A Man of the People and a ‘Kyrgyz Prince’
In an era of populism suffused with anti-corruption narratives, ostentatious behavior is a fatal embarrassment.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has gone to great lengths to frame himself as a man of the people and a crusader against corruption. His 2020 trajectory – from a prison cell to the presidency in a matter of weeks – fit into a powerful narrative that struck a chord with many Kyrgyz. Japarov, like them, had suffered injustice at the hands of a corrupt elite.
The fact he was pictured wearing a $3,000 designer-brand vest in 2020, mere days after getting out of jail, and donned a nearly $6,000 Italian designer jacket to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was hotly discussed among Japarov’s critics online but ultimately brushed aside as gifts or purchases made by his wife.
Other suggestions of self-enrichment or corruption have been similarly dismissed by the Japarov administration as mere slander.
A May 2024 investigative report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in partnership with Kyrgyz news outlets Kloop and TemirovLive, alleged that at least 11 major government projects were contracted out to companies owned by an extended network of Japarov’s friends and family.
In response, Japarov admonished the media in an interview with the state-owned Kabar news agency: “I have instructed government publications not to waste time responding to such media. In the future, you should not pay attention to such fictitious false investigations. I want to tell you to spend your time on useful things.”
In January 2023, 24.kg published an article titled “#JustFacts. Promises of Sadyr Japarov and his relatives in positions” which laid out the several statements the Kyrgyz president had made since his rise to power lambasting his precessors for allowing their friends and family to influence the political sphere and for appointing relatives to positions of power.
The article then sketched out the ways Japarov’s relatives had, in fact, exerted influence on Kyrgyzstan’s politics from the appointment of his younger brother’s brother-in-law as chairman of the Accounts Chamber, or appointing his sister’s daughter’s husband’s father the head of the Migration Service.
“It turns out that Sadyr Japarov, while criticizing his predecessors for employing relatives and friends, also practices this himself,” the article concluded.
These may seem like tenuous connections, but Kyrgyzstan’s politics have often been woven through with such extended relations.
Curiously, while deflecting accusations of nepotism and corruption, the Kyrgyz government under Japarov has also pursued corruption and other criminal charges against some of his relatives. The politics of families can be complicated.
In July 2023, Ulan Japarov, the son of one of Japarov’s cousins, was arrested on corruption charges said to involve the customs service. The customs service in Kyrgyzstan has been at the center of significant corruption allegations, such as those involving its former deputy head Raimbek Matraimov.
“Let this be a lesson for the rest of my relatives,” Japarov told journalists at the time.
On Facebook, Japarov’s spokesman wrote, “President Japarov has personally demanded that all legal measures be taken against suspects. This case once again shows that there is no selectiveness in the fight against corruption.”
To quote Queen Gertrude from Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Ulan was transferred to house arrest in October 2023 and then re-arrested on fraud charges in July 2024.
Ulan’s legal troubles overlapped with those of Aftandil Sabyrbekov, the boyfriend of Lazzat Nurgojoeva – the daughter of Japarov’s younger brother, Davletbek.
Sabyrbekov set off an online firestorm when Nurgojoeva shared a professionally cut video of their ostentatious engagement in June. In the video, Sabyrbekov and Nurgojoeva arrive in a helicopter at a majestic mountain pasture, replete with a wooden platform walkway over the grass to an Instagram-friendly table setting topped with a heart made of thousands of white roses with “will you marry me” hanging in the center (in English.
Kygyz media branded Sabyrbekov a “prince” and criticism came hard and fast for the extravagant proposal.
The helicopter was one of three owned by the Ministry of Emergency Situations, rented out at the same time devastating floods were inundating southern Kyrgyzstan.
The video sparked considerable backlash. As RFE/RL summarized in a mid-July article on the incident:
The juxtaposition of events angered many Kyrgyz, who wondered why the Emergency Ministry’s helicopter was serving as a luxurious vehicle for a relative of the president instead of being used for search-and-rescue purposes.
Japarov apologized for his niece’s “young and immature” behavior in a June 26 interview with Kabar, soon after the video went viral. But admonishment wasn’t enough. Two weeks later, on July 6 Sabyrbekov was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention on charges of illegal drug production with the intent to sell. His brother, Tariel, was also arrested, along with eight other individuals. On August 2, the brothers’ pre-trial detention was extended to October 2.
Japarov’s press secretary, Askat Alagozov, confirmed the arrest on July 9 and commented on Facebook that Aftandil Sabyrbekov tried “to find people to shelter him from the higher authorities… to hide his illegal activities.”
“Let me emphasize that President Sadyr Japarov cannot cover up and hide illegal activities,” Alagozov continued.
The incident has echoes of other extraordinary cases of the political elite in Central Asia punishing their own. No one embarasses quite like family. For example, when the scale of Gulnara Karimova’s corruption became so immense – and international attention increasingly intense in 2014 – then-Uzbek President Islam Karimov had his own daughter placed under house arrest. When he died two years later, the subsequent Uzbek government pursued charges against her. She remains in an Uzbek prison.
When it comes to the Sabyrbekov case, the specifics of the alleged crime are not known. What is known is that Sabyrbekov massively embarrassed Japarov. In an autocracy, that is essentially a crime. In an era of populism suffused with anti-corruption narratives, ostentatious behavior is a fatal embarrassment. Whether the Kyrgyz government takes corruption seriously is a subjective judgment; at the very least it takes seriously extravagant displays of wealth that could serve to undercut Japarov’s “man of the people” persona.