Today in the press conference held in News Agency 24.kg, Nurlan Motuev, aka Coal King, declared about his intentions to run for the position of Ombudsmen of Kyrgyz Republic. As 24.kg reports, Motuev was nominated to the post by the People’s Patriotic Movement Joomart, Human Rights Movement of Kyrgyzstan and some other private entities, whose names were left unknown.
Motuev has become a well known person in the political arena of Kyrgyzstan after the “Coal King” case, when Nurlan Motuev was arrested for illegally seizing and running the coal mine in the South of Kyrgyzstan for almost a year in 2005 not paying any taxes to the government. His case was a symbol of incapacity of Akaev’s government in dealing with illegal institutions in the country, the quantity of which skyrocketed by the year 2005. Ruslan Motuev was believed to be supported by Ryspek Akmatbaev, a famous criminal figure in the North of the country.
Most people associate Nurlan Motuev with Russian scandalous politician Vladimir Zhirinovski, who is running for presidency in Russia this year. They both have ambitious plans and scandalous reputations in the political arena of their countries. They even speak in the same manner.
Today, during the press conference that was also broadcast on local TV channels, Motuev as usual was making everyone laugh with his funny way of speaking and humorous remarks on current politics.
Given the other 2 contenders, I’m in two minds about whether Motuev’s participation is a positive or negative development; at face value he seems less likely to let his personal religious beliefs influence his approach to the post of Ombudsman, and he has shown that he can mobilise support and resources to get things done (leaving aside the question of legality).
What worries me more is that the whole thing seems to be a bit of an ego trip, as his comments show:
“I asked why they were nominating me. They replied that my actions correspond with the activities of human rights defenders. In their opinion I was a human rights defender even before March 2005″ [link to the Russian 24.kg article is broken above - it's http://www.24.kg/community/2008/02/05/75685.html.
That said, if he's looking to take on the government, the Ombudsman's Office could be a good place from which to do so as it does at least provide an opportunity to do more that "sit in Parliament and bark with Akaev's lapdogs" [my non-literal translation], which is how he explained his decision not to stand as a deputy back in September 2007 (http://www.24.kg/community/2007/09/05/61037.html).
Could be interesting in more than the usual sense (i.e. disfunctionality followed by deadlock between opposing government officials followed by no change…) if he’s serious, but I’m not foolhardy enough to want to make any prognoses at the moment.
By: CXW on February 6, 2008
at 11:00 pm
[...] first impressions are very positive: there have been well-written posts about Nurlan Motuev running for Ombudsman, a Friday’s Photo post (a la neweurasia’s Kazkakhstan’s blog) featuring our own [...]
By: kyrgyzstan.neweurasia.net » Nomadistan Preview on February 13, 2008
at 12:01 am