The Dictators Of Central Asia On The Global Radar

Since the Arab Spring the global media seems to have found a new obsession – a preoccupation with the remaining ruling dictators, their powers, legitimacy, impending revolutions, and the viability of totalitarian regimes in general.

By the “global media” here I mean the news media (TV, radio, newspapers) and the Internet which also includes social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) and the blogosphere etc. I think it’s interesting that there is no word in the English language that encompasses all of these concepts in one. Perhaps it is yet to be invented, but for now I refer to it as something that is “out there” in the form of information supplied and channeled by various agents and voices.

In February of this year as the protests rocked the Tahrir Square, Time Magazine ran a piece called Top 10 Autocrats in Trouble featuring ten rulers that are likely to lose power. Accurately forecasted by the magazine (no surprises or bold predictions here given the timing), Hosni Mubarak of Egypt topped the list at number one. Emomali Rahmon, president of Tajikistan, was ranked number eight in the article and is the only one to have the honor of representing the governments of the five Central Asian states. It is not entirely clear why he was singled out, but perhaps the authors think that since Tajikistan is not awash in petrodollars and is facing some serious economic pressures it is thus arguably more susceptible to revolution.

CBSNews.com ran the WorldWatch series named “The world’s enduring dictators” inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt and focused on men who continue to rule their lands unimpeded by law. The WorldWatch series identifies world leaders who can be classified as dictators, focusing on their length of rule, their most despotic acts and their country’s outlook for change. It attempts to stick closely to the strict definitions of “dictator” (an individual ruler who rules unrestrained by law) and “despot” (a violent, oppressive dictator.) The installments appeared one dictator at a time, in order of length of rule, although the piece cautions that length or rule is not a definite indicator of the despotism of the ruler.

The finalists (a total of 21 dictators) include three Central Asian leaders: Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), and Emomali Rahmon (Tajikistan). The runner up group of 11 dictators include the president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. Thus, four out of five Central Asian leaders made it to the hall of democratic shame, save for Kyrgyzstan which after two revolutions in 2005 and 2010 is finally a parliamentary democracy albeit unstable and weak.

In the grand scheme of things there is no need to refer to dictator rankings. It is clear that Central Asia remains largely authoritarian, ruled by aging technocrats and apparatchiks. A ruler’s time in power is a good indicator of democratic consolidation in and of itself, and none of the four have good credentials.

In addition, the kind of methodology used in ranking dictators is subjective at best and questionable at worst because there are so many factors that go into defining a despot. What if he has been in power for only 5 years but has ruled with an iron fist as opposed to somebody in power for decades marginally suppressing freedom of speech and assembly? Unless these rankings are done by reputable scholars, I would take them with a grain of salt.