AUG. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia voted in Raul Khajimba as its new president. Bucking expectations, Mr Khajimba won the vote in the first round, providing Abkhazia and Russia, its patron, with a show of unity. Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 2008. Georgia described the vote as illegal.
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(News report from Issue No. 197, published on Aug. 27 2014)
JULY 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Dream, a political coalition set up in 2012 by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, completed its clean sweep of the country’s major political offices by winning a run-off in the Tbilisi mayoral election. Davit Narmania, the Georgian Dream candidate, won with nearly 75% of the vote.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream has completed its clean sweep and defeated former President Mikheil Saakashvilil’s United National Movement (UNM) party in local elections.
Official results have not yet been published from Sunday’s local election but preliminary figures put Georgian dream ahead in most regions.
Overall, victory for Georgian Dream appears emphatic, pulling in 50.8% of the national vote compared to the UMN’s 22.4%, according to the election commission.
Georgian Dream is the party of Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili. It surged to power two years ago in a remarkable parliamentary election in which it defeated a seemingly indomitable UNM.
Last year, Georgian Dream also won a presidential election, propelling Giorgi Margvelashvili to power, and now victory in local governments completes its domination.
The UNM complained that irregularities had tarnished the election but European observers passed it as a legitimate expression of the popular will.
In Tbilisi, the Georgian Dream mayoral candidate will have to compete in a second round vote, but only because he failed, just, to take more than 50% of the votes.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
BISHKEK/Kyrgyzstan, JUNE 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dressed in a colourful striped shirt Narynbek Moldobayev is on first name terms with all the staff at this Italian restaurant in central Bishkek.
Moldobayev is the archetypal Kyrgyz MP and rather charming with it. Having moved seamlessly between three political parties in the last five years, his politics can be described as fluid — a common characteristic in Kyrgyzstan.
And it is this fluidity amongst the Kyrgyzstan’s political class, that’s important to examine as it is undermining, many say, Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy.
An MP who supported former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in a revolution in 2010, Moldobayev is now part of an opposition group that split from the nationalist Ata-Jurt party.
“I was never a nationalist,” he said as he tucked into a bowl of salad.
Moldobayev is 60-years-old and sentimental about the Soviet Union. He praises Russia unreservedly but is suspicious of China and its “desire to influence” the Central Asian energy sphere.
Moldobayev, primarily a businessman who made his money in the construction and oil industries, seems unbothered by the values of the party whose list he has paid his way to be on through donations. “Kyrgyz politics is built on personal gripes,” he said wearily, explaining why some parties in the parliament have effectively disintegrated.
Many say Kyrgyzstan’s political system might be more representative if it ditched party lists in favour of geographic constituencies. In the parliamentary vote in 2010 five parties took less than 40% of the vote creating a fractious, and many argue weaker, parliament. Moldobayev disagrees with this viewpoint, citing potential for “dangerous localism”.
There may be another reason, though. Since few people actually know who Moldobayev is and he might not win a seat.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign investment in Georgia jumped to $260m in the first quarter of 2014, a 15% increase from a year earlier, the statistics agency reported. Foreign investment is a vital part of Georgia’s economy. The government has tried to restore investor confidence after two destabilising elections.
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)
MAY 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atamabayev said that he would respect the constitution which limits him to one 6-year term in office, media reported. Mr Atambayev was voted into power in 2011. His election was the first peaceful transition of power in Kyrgyzstan since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov clearly intends to remain in power for some time to come.
At a conference in Samarkand, Mr Karimov, 76, said that he had no intention of relinquishing power any time soon.
“I am one of those who is criticised for staying too long,” AFP quoted Mr Karimov telling diplomats and scholars gathered for a conference on the Golden Age of Islam.
“I am criticized, but I stay. I am criticised but I want to keep working. What’s wrong with that?”
Mr Karimov’s comments are pertinent for two reasons. Over the past six months or so some doubt has crept in over the strength of the Karimov family’s grip on power. Mr Karimov’s eldest daughter, Gulnara, has disappeared from public life since she was reportedly placed under house arrest earlier this year. Prior to that she had been stripped, very publicly, of power and influence.
As, seemingly, her father’s successor, these attacks on Gulnara were seen as an attack on Mr Karimov himself. His powerful intelligence chief, Rustam Inoyatov is widely thought of to be behind the discrediting of Gulnara Karimova.
Mr Karimov has ruled over Uzbekistan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Next year, Uzbekistan holds a presidential election. This may only be a Potemkin election but it is still important and it looks as if Mr Karimov will be one of the candidates.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
JAN. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human rights groups have said they are concerned about the pre-trial conditions of Anar Mammadli, arrested last month in Azerbaijan on tax evasion charges, media reported. Mr Mammadli is the head of the independent Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center and has previously criticised Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights groups criticised Turkmenistan’s parliamentary election, officially heralded as the start of multi-party politics, as mere window dressing. The vote on Dec. 15 was the first time an election in Turkmenistan has been contested by two parties. In reality the opposition party was staunchly pro-president.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s biggest bank by assets, and businessman Kenes Rakishev agreed to buy a majority stake in the beleaguered BTA Bank. The deal is a relief for the government which has been looking to offload its 97.3% stake in BTA Bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
