sentences:  They used the ethnic unrest and riots of 1989–90 to delegitimize Gorbachev’s appointees and put forward their own candidates for the high post of republic first secretary, which in a nutshell is how both Akayev and Karimov first rose to power.The clan is an informal identity network based on kinship ties and is common in semimodern societies.In such societies identities embedded in informal networks such as clans are stronger than formally institutionalised ethnonational and religious identities.