Europe Features

PROFILE: Roza Otunbayeva is Kyrgyzstan's foremost firebrand

By Ulf Mauder Apr 8, 2010, 20:11 GMT

People gathered in front of the government building to celebrate their victory in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan 08 April 2010. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

Bishkek/Moscow - Roza Otunbayeva earned her reputation as Kyrgyzstan's foremost firebrand a good while ago. The redoubtable politician, a 59-year-old mother of two, is no stranger to violent protests against Kyrgyz presidents who have fallen out of favour with their people.

Five years ago, she was one of the leaders of the 'Tulip Revolution' that ousted President Askar Akayev. Now she and her followers have forced President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, her onetime ally, to flee the capital, Bishkek. Bakiyev's rule has been seen as increasingly authoritarian.

Short, stocky, combative and often flamboyantly dressed, Otunbayeva is known far beyond the borders of her own country as an advocate of basic democratic rights.

Writing in both Russian and English, she zealously decries her homeland's ills on the Internet via Twitter, the popular social networking and microblogging service.

She has dared to speak out even though government critics and journalists in Kyrgyzstan have been murdered. The abuse of power makes her furious. 'Politics is a virus,' Otunbayeva once remarked.

She studied philosophy in Moscow and wrote her dissertation on the Frankfurt School's critique of Marxism-Leninism. Her chief foes, she has always said, are nepotism, corruption and political repression of dissidents. Her determination and the way she has remained true to herself have won the respect of her followers.

Otunbayeva was born on August 23, 1950, in Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan, where conservative Islam in the Central Asian nation is strongest. For years she has condemned domestic violence against women and the tradition of bride kidnappings and forced marriages.

As parliamentary group leader of Kyrgyzstan's opposition Social Democratic Party, she has devoted much of her time to human rights issues.

She was foreign minister under both Akayev and Bakiyev before falling out with them. Now she is calling for a group of experts to amend the Kyrgyz constitution, which in its current form, she says, is a fundamental evil that 'changes people in power.'

Otunbayeva abandoned academia in the 1980s for politics, at first in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After the country broke up and Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, became independent, she held high posts in the Kyrgyz government and also served as ambassador to countries including the United States and Britain.

The summit of power had hitherto been out of her reach, partly because she is a woman and Kyrgyz politics are male-dominated. Now, with Russia's backing, she is head of a transitional government. Whether she can parlay this position into the elected head of state remains to be seen.

All that can probably be said for certain is that Otunbayeva will continue to fight fiercely against tyranny and aggression. 'I consider power to be an instrument with which to implement a programme for the majority of people -- and not for oneself or one's own family and relatives,' she once said in an interview.