The Kyrgyz Capital is Left Without a Mayor
Kubanychbek Kulmatov took the mayor's office in 2014. He was the only candidate (from the presidential party "SDPK"), and the voting became a mere formality. However, no one protested or demanded a review or cancellation of the elections, which essentially became an appointment of the candidate "from above." Kulmatov was unconditionally presented with flowers and "symbols of governance" – the national men's clothing chapans and kalpaks. Soon he presented a new development strategy for the capital, based not only on subsidies but also on the activity of the citizens themselves. In addition, the new mayor took on the implementation of the "Safe City" project, the fight against illegal parking, the repair and marking of dilapidated roads, the renewal of the municipal transport fleet, and a war with minibus drivers, as well as disputes with outraged residents of new buildings who had once seized land on the outskirts of Bishkek and demanded conditions equal to those of citizens who had lived in the capital for many years... These problems, left over from the previous mayor Isa Omurkulov, along with new complaints from citizens, were abundant: there were neither enough hands nor funds in the budget to fully resolve them, but many issues of the metropolis began to move from a dead point and started to be addressed.
However, the outgoing mayor is most remembered for his fight against garbage, which ended in favor of household and construction waste. When he took office, the city was drowning in waste, and the system responsible for garbage collection was mired in corruption. The situation escalated to open accusations and criminal cases, and the leadership of the municipal enterprise "Tazalyk" changed. Garbage collectors began to work almost in three shifts, but at the local level, the management of some homeowners' associations and quarters, for a certain fee, entered into contracts with private companies for garbage collection, which failed to fulfill their duties. And when they did collect garbage, they dumped it in illegal landfills or on the already overloaded waste landfill. "Tazalyk" was forced to listen to citizens' appeals and re-sign contracts with residents of the affected areas and new buildings. The amount of waste increased, new containers were needed, and the registration of all citizens disposing of waste was required so that they would pay for the garbage collection service. An agreement was also reached on the construction of a new landfill and the conservation of the old one, as well as a waste sorting plant. However, the number of garbage collectors and trucks did not increase, and they had to manage on their own; the management of "Tazalyk" had to create a new base of payers and also listen to citizens' complaints and respond to their signals about uncollected waste. By the way, the citizens themselves turned out to be quite active. Thus, a petition even appeared online proposing to install bins for the separate disposal of various types of waste for greater convenience, in order to teach fellow citizens to maintain order even before the waste recycling plant appears. And after the head of the district department of "Tazalyk" was removed in the Oktyabrsky district, and his supporters went on strike, the residents of Bishkek declared a "garbage war." This reached even the president, Almazbek Atambayev, who promised to remove the mayor if he did not manage the garbage issue by the end of 2015.
The names of candidates for the vacant position are still unknown, but the waste issue remains relevant for the next mayor. News-Asia will follow whether Kulmatov's successor will manage to implement the projects he initiated.
