JAN. 21 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alla Dzhioyeva, South Ossetia’s ex-education minister who beat a Moscow-backed candidate in a presidential election last year, demanded she be handed power. A re-run of the annulled election is scheduled for March 25. Political tension in the Georgian rebel state is potentially explosive for the region.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 74, published on Jan. 26 2012)
JAN. 18 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Burdymukhamedov will face seven token opponents in the country’s Feb. 12 presidential election, the Central Election Commission confirmed when it published the official candidate list. Mr Berdymukhamedov’s opponents are drawn from government ministries and state companies.
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(News report from Issue No. 73, published on Jan. 19 2012)
JAN. 18 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh authorities have been touting the parliamentary election on Jan. 15 as a democratic leap forward.
As expected Nur Otan, the party of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, won with 80% of the vote. Behind it was Ak Zhol with 7.5% and the Communist People’s Party (CPP) with 7.2%.
Both Ak Zhol and CPP gain seats in parliament by passing a 7% barrier, therefore ending a one-party parliament. This, the authorities say, shows Kazakhstan’s commitment to democracy.
Except that it doesn’t.
Both Ak Zhol and the CPP are overtly pro-presidential. The new parliament may have three different parties but it will still have only one voice.
The Kazakh authorities had also neatly dispatched the real opposition in the run-up to the election. The Central Election Commission suspended the Communist Party for 6 months in October and also banned other opponents on technicalities in the weeks before the election.
At a small rally in Almaty on Jan. 17, opposition leaders described the election as a fraud and called for a mass demonstration on Jan. 28. The crushing apathy of the voters means that a decent turnout for the rally is unlikely.
Still, there are more and more dissenting voices on the streets. A bank worker stood in the snow and listened to the opposition leaders. She was disgusted with the election.
“It’s the Soviet way,” she said of the authorities’ attitude towards democracy and voters.
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(News report from Issue No. 73, published on Jan. 19 2012)
JAN. 13 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Elections observers from the former Soviet Union will monitor Turkmenistan’s presidential election on Feb. 12 2012. However, Europe’s main election monitoring group, the OSCE, has said that political freedom is so restricted in Turkmenistan that there is no point in sending a vote monitoring team.
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
JAN. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev overruled an earlier decision by the Constitutional Council to cancel voting in a parliamentary election in the town of Zhanaozen. Zhanaozen has been under a state-of-emergency since rioting on Dec. 16 killed at least 16 people.
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
JAN. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president, extended a state-of-emergency by 26 days in Zhanaozen, the town near the Caspian Sea at the centre of rioting last month that killed 16 people. The state-of-emergency had been set to end on Jan. 5. It now ends on Jan. 31 and falls over a parliamentary election planned for Jan. 15.
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(News report from Issue No. 71, published on Jan. 5 2012)
DEC. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Political instability from a disputed Nov. 27 presidential election continues to stalk the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia.
After 10 days of protests the disqualified winner of the election Alla Dzhioyeva, a former education minister, agreed to call off further demonstrations.
In the deal Eduard Kokoity resigned as president on Dec. 10 and Ms Dzhioyeva will be allowed to challenge the Kremlin-backed candidate Anatoly Bibilov, the emergencies minister, in an election re-run in March. PM Vadim Brotsev will become the interim president.
Ms Dzhioyeva had shocked the Kremlin by winning around 56% of the vote in a second round run-off against Mr Bibilov. Both support close ties with Moscow but Ms Dzhioyeva ran a vigorous campaign against corruption while Mr Bibilov’s campaign appeared lacklustre and complacent.
A few days after the election, though, South Ossetia’s central election commission annulled the vote and banned Ms Dzhioyeva from a re-run for apparently bribing voters. She denied this.
South Ossetia, a mountainous sliver of land of 70,000 people, is awash with weapons and violence is never far below the surface. Since a 2008 war with Georgia, Russia has recognised the independence of South Ossetia and the other Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia.
Politicians in Georgia have likened the in-fighting to two squabbling mafia groups.
But social and political tension in South Ossetia and Abkhazia matters. It can spread easily and warm up one of the South Caucasus’ so-called frozen conflicts.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will raise taxes to 25% from 20% for people earning over $5,250 per month in a 2012 budget which aims to reduce the national deficit and increase spending, local media reported. Detractors say tax increases will hit small and medium-sized businesses. Armenia holds elections in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A disputed parliamentary election in Russia on Dec. 4 triggered unprecedented anti-government street demonstrations in Russian cities, protests which will have worried leaders in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus have strong historical, business, family and political ties with Russia and what happens there matters.
Politics in Kazakhstan is similarly aligned to Russia and the country is confronting growing pains. President Nursultan Nazarbayev also has to deal with a parliamentary election on Jan. 15.
Although Mr Nazarbayev’s position is far more secure than his Russian counterparts’ he faces lingering issues over his succession policy and commitment to genuine democracy. The compliant Kazakh media has steered away from covering the Russia protests in detail but Mr Nazarbayev certainly wouldn’t want them to linger.
In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the media is even more tightly controlled and the impact of the anti-government protests in Moscow will be softer but, again, if they are prolonged they will start to worry their leaders.
In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan is most prone to an impact from street demonstrations in Russia. Its police force stamped out anti-government protests during the first half of the year and demonstrations in Russia could embolden protesters again.
It is premature to talk of a Slavic Spring in Russia but there is an air of change and this attitude could start to drip into other former Soviet states.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s Senate voted to cut the presidential term to five years from seven years in a move that means President Islam Karimov may legally be able to continue his reign despite being in the second consecutive and final seven-year term allowed in the Constitution. Mr Karimov’s current term ends in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
