One of the most popular issues being discussed recently among Kyrgyz bloggers and those writing about Kyrgyzstan is the scandal with the deputy of parliament Omurbek Tekebaev, who was detained in Warsaw with 500 grams of cocaine in his luggage. With lots of speculations around this incident, Mirsulzhan on the Russian language site of NewEurasia discusses versions floating. He brings up three major versions about political stakeholders that could potentially be involved into the provocation against the well know MP and one of the leaders of Kyrgyz opposition. As Mirsulzhan explains, the potential provocateurs are not necessarily governments officials who are allegedly interested in getting rid of Tekebaev. There are also the versions that Kyrgyz opposition could potentially be involved into “equipping” Tekebaev luggage with the nesting doll, stuffed with cocaine.

Edil Baisalov discusses the very same issue in his live journal. The leader of the “Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society” though rejects the version about opposition members’ involvement into the incident. Baisalov argues:

“Why are we trying to come up with accusations against Felix Kulov or Tekebaev himself? How come, even if this provocation was well ahead strategized by Omurbek Tekebaev, that the alert to Warsaw was sent from the Kazakh branch of Interpol in Astana ?”

In Baisalov’s opinion, the Service of National Security of Kyrgyzstan was offering lame excuses, while rejecting accusations in staging a provocation against Tekebaev. Baisalov makes a strong point, discussing Jenishbek Bakiev’s involvement into the scandal. One of the brothers of Kyrgyz president, according to the opinion of opposition members, directly participated in the provocation, aiming to discredit Tekebaev. Baisalov states that all the explanations offered by Jenishbek Bakiev were fabricated and noone actually believed that SNS was not involved:

“They say that the nesting doll that was discovered in Tekebaev’s suitcase is one of a kind and you can’t buy it in Kyrgyzstan, and that cocaine is rare here also,”-mentiones Baisalov, -“but these tactics are usual for the Service of National Security here. Do you remember the scandal with those bugs in parliament? SNS that said that all the devices were too outdated for SNS to use them in whatever purposes, but that it was proved than that it was their job. ”

Thus, Baisalov doesn’t hesitate concluding, that this time, in the course of investigation ,enough evidence got collected for proving the involvement of SNS into staging the provocation.

Nastia on NewEurasia also touches upon the issue of the “martyrdom” of Omurbek Tekebaev, though she looks at the story from a slightly different angle. In her post about the efficiency of the Kyrgyz parliament ,she argues that from the very first day of their election deputies of the new parliament have been mainly preoccupied with arranging their own affairs, hardly caring about anything else, besides own security and authority. Nastia states that the new scandal with Tekebaev again revealed that fact that the big noise in Kyrgyz parliament starts only when deputies feel some kind of a threat ,posing challenge to their legitimacy. Interests of ordinary people lie outside of the circle of interests of Kyrgyz MPs.

Shaun Roberts, who provided an analysis of Tekebaev’s case, also made several interesting remarks, characterizing the scandal and its outcomes as “political horse trading”. Roberts writes:

“Interestingly, the political horse-trading is taking place in the context of an interesting information war. The internet is full of theories that implicate everybody from the United States (as the perennial enemy of the former Soviet Union) to Kazakhstan (for its still unclear involvement in sending Interpol to apprehend Tekebayev. Furthermore, comments to Kyrgyzstan’s news websites have become a battleground of disinformation and conspiracy theories. Bakiyev has not helped by the adding vaguely that he did not rule out the involvement of foreign governments in this scandal. Scandal involving Tekebayev may never be solved in a manner that inspires confidence in the public that justice has been done. As the political horse trading continues, however, the re-ordering of political forces in the country could offer some hints as to who really set up whom and why”.

In general, it is safe to state that the scandal over Tekebaev again has polarized Kyrgyz society, with different opinions expressed and tensions performed. Though, there are things that inevitably catch an eye of those, trying to analyze the consequences of the incident (there are hardly enough evidences to analyze the causes yet). First and foremost it is evident that Tekebaev’s arrest and than his victorious arrival back home gave enough scores to once again present opposition leaders as the victims of oppression. They kept talking about political oppressions at the recent kurultay. As they say in a famous Nescafe TV ad “This is a good start of the day”. Indeed, Tekebaev’s arrest became a good beginning…of the political season. The summer was so hot and relaxing: we really needed something fishy to shake up. Our spin doctors (whichever side they belong) succeeded with that: now we are awake and on guard, anticipating more to come. It is, indeed, seems to be a good trick –when you don’t have anything to feed your people with start entertaining them with political jiu jitzu. Till a certain point it works.