In less than three weeks Sadyr Japarov went from being a prisoner to being, concurrently, Kyrgyzstan's prime minister and acting president.
Japarov has been moving rapidly -- naming new officials, pressing forward on conducting both parliamentary and presidential elections in the coming months, and pushing for changes in the constitution that would reverse Kyrgyzstan's course from moving toward a parliamentary form of government, to moving back toward a presidential one.
There have been high-profile detentions of suspected top figures in organized crime and an economic amnesty to allow those who illegally took money outside the country to bring that money back legally.
On this week's Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL's media-relations manager for South and Central Asia, Muhammad Tahir, moderates a discussion on what's been happening in Kyrgyzstan since Sadyr Japarov was freed from prison during the unrest sparked by the highly questionable results of the October 4 parliamentary elections.
This week's guests are all from Bishkek: Asel Doolotkeldieva, associate researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek; Perizat Saitburkhanova, a local TV journalist; Mursuljan Namazaaly, founder of a Bishkek-based research center, the Central Asia Free Market Institute; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.
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Majlis Podcast: Power Grab In Kyrgyzstan
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