Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan--Kylychbek Beksariyev lost two friends to a bloody revolution he hoped would transform ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, but five years after the ouster of a reviled leader he says his Central Asian homeland remains mired in poverty and corruption.
"Officials still steal," the sports instructor, 27, said. "I work the same job I worked in 2010. The pay increased 20 percent and the price of bread by 30 percent."
"Is that progress?" he asked.
A landlocked nation of some six million people, Kyrgyzstan has suffered periodic bouts of political instability and ethnic strife since shortly before its independence from the USSR in 1991.
The uprising of April 2010 -- when scores of protestors were killed as they seized government offices -- turfed out authoritarian leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who himself came to power on the back of a popular uprising five years earlier.
The ouster of Bakiyev -- now in exile in Belarus -- sparked hope of a rare democratic breakthrough in a region dominated by ageing Soviet-era autocrats.
Since then the country under current leader Almazbek Atambayev has made vital strides towards cementing a multi-party system and faces genuinely competitive parliamentary polls this fall.
Speaking Tuesday in the capital Bishkek at a ceremony to remember the people who died during the April 7 revolution, Atambayev insisted progress has been made.
"We are creating a country of free people. We are building a secular, democratic state," said Atambayev, whose legally-permitted single term ends in 2017.
But some say the expectations of the uprising have not been met.
AFP
