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Tajik president’s son gets elected into city assembly

APRIL 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The son of Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon, Rustam Emomali, was officially voted in as a deputy in Dushanbe’s city assembly. The vote allows Mr Emomali to take over as mayor of Dushanbe, a move that marks yet another shift rise for a man analysts have said is being groomed to take over the top job from his father. In January, Mr Rakhmon appointed his son to be the acting mayor of Dushanbe, but he could only become the permanent mayor after he had been elected to the city’s assembly. He had previously been head of the government’s anti-corruption unit and head of Tajikistan’s football federation.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Armenia’s new constitution

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APRIL 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> Armenia has just held a parliamentary election that many observers have said is its most important since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Why?

>> The parliamentary election on April 2 was the first since a referendum in December 2015 that changed the constitution and shifted the balance of power away from the President to the PM and parliament. The constitutional changes don’t actually come into effect until President Serzh Sargysan finishes his second and final term in office next year, but the point is that the parliament elected this month will have more power than any other in Armenia’s independence.

>> What are the main changes in the constitution?

>> Whereas neighbouring Georgia shifted some power to parliament in constitutional changes in 2010, Armenia went the whole hog and will move from a presidential system to a parliamentary one. The president is to become a figurehead with no decision-making powers. Direct elections for the president will also be scrapped, parliament will instead pick him or her. Instead, the PM will be the head of the military, will appoint ministers and will set the various policies. Previously, the President had controlled all the major decisions, including appointing the PM.

>> So why were the changes controversial?

>> There the suspicion that Sargsyan and his allies were trying to tie up power for themselves. Sargsyan is obliged to stand down as President at the end of his second term. The opposition said that he would then try to become PM to retain all his power. We’ll have to wait and see on this. It was certainly convenient for Sargsyan that only his allies and appointees sat on the commission to draft the new constitution and also that it doesn’t come into force until the end of his second term.

>> How has Parliament changed with the new constitution?

>> The number of deputies is being cut to 101 directly elected, down from 131, with four seats being given to ethnic minorities. The 101 seats will also be elected wholly through a system of proportional representation. A second round vote has also been introduced to ensure that the winning party has a parliamentary majority. Opposition members have criticised the reforms as undemocratic but the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s constitutional watchdog, gave the changes a qualified thumbs up.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Republican Party easily wins Armenian parliamentary election

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YEREVAN, APRIL 2/3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s ruling Republican Party won a parliamentary election that will shape the country’s politics for years to come, although its opponents complained of vote- rigging and monitors said that there had been irregularities.

Victory for the Republican Party, though, didn’t trigger the outpouring of frustration and resentment that some had predicted and a Conway Bulletin correspondent in the capital said it was calmer now than in any previous election over the past few years. In 2008, protests dragged on until clashes between demonstrators and soldiers killed at least 11 people.

Much of the Republican Party support came from people unwilling to take a risk with the opposition.

“I had to vote for Republicans as I am a teacher which means I work for the state and I am paid from state and this is kind of a payback,” said a Yerevan-based teacher after voting.

Only four groups won enough votes to enter parliament which will wield more power after a change to the constitution that shifts power from the president to parliament.

President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party won 49% of the vote and will hold 55 seats of the 105-seat parliament. The Tsarukyan alliance led by oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan, generally considered to be sympathetic to the government, won 27% of the vote and will have 30 MPs. For the opposition, the Yelk (Way Out) bloc won 7% of the vote and Armenia’s Revolutionary Foundation party won 6%.

The assessment of the OSCE’s election monitoring unit, ODHIR, though, was less than flattering.

The elections were “tainted by credible information about vote-buy- ing, and pressure on civil servants and employees of private companies,” it said in a report.

The Conway Bulletin spoke to one person happy to take money in exchange for their vote.

“I wasn’t going to go at all, but my neighbour learned that they were buying votes,” said a 32-year-old man in Yerevan. “They paid 10,000 dram ($20.66) per person and explained how to vote.”

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Trail route from Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey to open in June

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MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail route, considered a vital piece of infrastructure linking the Caspian Sea to Europe, will officially opened in June, media reported by quoting Turkey’s minister of transport, Ahmet Arslan. The route has been severely delayed. It is primarily designed for goods transport but will also carry passenger sleeper trains.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Food prices rise in Turkmenistan

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MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Turkmen government has ordered shopkeepers to raise their prices by 20%, as a kind of unofficial tax to help the state pay for the Asian Indoor and Martial Art Games which it is hosting later this year, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported. It quoted an opposition website and also ordinary people from Ashgabat as saying prices had risen by between 20% and 50% this year on various foodstuffs.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Comment: The green shoots of a recovery are visible

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APRIL 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Edinburgh, where The Conway Bulletin has its editorial HQ, the green shoots of a timid spring are finally beginning to breakthrough after a long, grey winter.

And it’s the same scenario for the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. A deep, bleak winter has enveloped them since mid-2014 but now, finally, data suggests a revival is on the horizon.

In this week’s newspaper, we report that both the Kyrgyz and Armenian Central Banks have kept their key interest rates steady. This, in itself, is a victory. Armenia has been furiously cutting its rates from a high of 10.5% in 2015 to 6% to try to stimulate growth and beat deflation. Now it says this policy has gone far enough and that inflation of around 4% is predicted this year.

In Kyrgyzstan, the economic news is even more upbeat. In its statement explaining just why it had kept interest rates steady, the Central Bank said that it was no longer having to intervene in the money market to keep the som currency from sliding. It also said that the economy had grown by 5.4% in January and February compared to the same period in 2016.

Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are two of the smaller economies in the region but the larger economies are also reporting positive news.

In Georgia, the statistics agency said that the economy had grown by 4.8% in the first two months of the year, pushed up by a growth in exports and an all- important rise in remittances. Georgia may also be benefiting from several local factors. Improved relations with Russia have given exports a major boost, especially wine, and the scrapping of visa regulations for Iranians has encouraged a large rise in tourists and business trips.

For the region’s two major economies the data has been less flattering, although there are still signs of improvements. In Azerbaijan, there is disagreement between economists on whether its economy will grow or not after it shrank by 3.8% in 2016. It’s dependent on oil, and prices are currently hovering around $50/barrel, above the anticipated $40/barrel.

In Kazakhstan, the Central Bank last month cut its interest rate and gave its most upbeat assessment of the economy, pointing out that inflation was under control and growth was expected.

And if you’re still not convinced about those green shoots of economic recovery, and that’s understandable as, just like a Scottish spring, they are fragile, take a look at the Azerbaijani manat and the Kazakh tenge. They are both up against the US dollar by more than 5% this year.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Tajik lawyer flees into exile

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MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A lawyer working on a human rights case in Tajikistan has fled the country fearing for her safety, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, just the latest in a series of anti- government activists who have moved into self-imposed exile. RFE/RL said that they had spoken to Muazzama Qodirova who was now in Germany where she hoped to apply for asylum. She had been working on defending jailed human rights lawyer, Buzurgmehr Yorov. Free speech and human rights groups have complained of the Tajik government’s increasingly dictatorial approach to governing.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Kyrgyz opposition in jail attempts suicide

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APRIL 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz opposition leaders demanded an investigation into wounds found on Sadyr Japarov, a former MP who was detained last month after he arrived back in Kyrgyzstan after four years of self- imposed exile. Mr Japarov, who has been detained on suspicion of involvement in various financial crimes, was found with cuts to his neck which the authorities have said were self-inflicted during a suicide attempt. In March hundreds of Mr Japarov’s supporters had clashed with police in Bishkek. Mr Japarov is one of several opposition leaders who have been arrested.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Inflation slows in Georgia

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APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Price inflation in Georgia measured 0.5% in March, Geostats said, a sharp fall from 1.7% in February. The fall pushed overall annualised inflation down slightly to 5.4% in March from 5.5% in February. The Central Bank has said it is targeting overall inflation for 2017 of around 4%. Like the rest of the region, Georgia is recovering from a sharp economic downturn linked to a recession in Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Russian Officials accuse Kyrgyz man for suicide bomb in St Petersbug

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BISHKEK, APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Scrutiny of Central Asia as a breeding ground for Islamic extremists intensified after Russian security forces named 22-year-old Akbarzhon Jalilov from Kyrgyzstan as the suicide bomber who killed at least 14 people on Monday on the St Petersburg metro.

In the 48 hours following the attack, Russian police detained six people from Central Asia who they said were recruiting for the IS extremist group. Russia is a major destination for migrant workers from Central Asia and a vital source of remittance flows.

One of the 14 people confirmed dead in the bomb attack was a Kazakh national who had been studying in St Petersburg.

In Kyrgyzstan, people were split on the implications of the St Petersburg bomb. Many people worried about a backlash against Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia.

“The terrorist act has caused damage to our country’s image. All over the world, they now write that the terrorist was from Kyrgyzstan,” Azamat, from Karakol in eastern Kyrgyzstan, said. “Now, many of our migrants in the Russian Federation will be affected by the terrorist attack. There will be daily inspections and other actions [by police].”

Jalilov, the alleged suicide bomber, was an ethnic Uzbek of Kyrgyz nationality who was brought up in Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan. Media reports, though, said that he had been living in Russia for a few years and had taken Russian citizenship. Earlier this year an Uzbek man was arrested in Istanbul for killing at 39 people at a nightclub on New Year’s eve.

In 2016, security forces said 600 Kyrgyz travelled to Syria to join IS and many people in Bishkek were worried that these people were returning and spreading extreme ideology.

“Radical Islam is guilty of this bombing. Some people go abroad to receive religious education, are recruited by radicals and come back,” said Dmitry, 36.

Central Asia is the focus of a debate over whether it has become the main recruiting ground for IS.

Those that say it has, have said the mix of frustrated young men with little prospects, the rise of militant Islam and the harsh tactics used by the security forces are pushing people into the arms of extremists.

Others have said this description is overblown. Edward Lemon, a research scholar at Columbia University specialising in extremism in Central Asia, said the region is not providing IS with a flow of recruits.

“These isolated attacks do not necessarily indicate that Central Asia is becoming a hotbed of extremism. In fact, the evidence suggests a slowing of the flow of recruits to IS and al-Nusra in recent months,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)