APRIL 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a snub to the Georgian Prosecutor-General, Interpol removed a wanted notice on former justice minister Zurab Adeishvili. The EU and the US have said the Georgia legislation targets governing Georgian Dream coalition is using legal mechanisms to go after officials linked to former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The latest polling by the International Republican Institute (IRI), makes uneasy reading for the Georgian Dream coalition.
The poll, released in late March, shows support for Georgian Dream dropping to 35%. This is bad news for Georgian Dream, but so is the story told by the other numbers: 14% of likely voters say they support the United National Movement (UNM) of ex-president Saakashvili, 12% say they support nobody, and 11% refused to answer.
If these numbers look familiar to Georgian Dream politicians, it’s because they are disturbingly similar to a poll taken in summer 2012 by IRI’s sister organization, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). That poll, now infamous in Georgian political history, was the last taken before Georgian Dream swept to victory in November 2012, and everybody interpreted it all wrong.
In summer 2012, 37% said they’d vote for the incumbent UNM, while 12% responded Georgian Dream. When Georgian Dream went on to win almost 60% on the day pollsters were flummoxed, and many uncharitably said NDI were in cahoots with the UNM. In fact, that poll revealed much more about Georgian’s voting habits than anyone expected. 22% of respondents said they did not know who to vote for, and 21% refused to answer. Fear, embarrassment and a mistrust of polling organizations had led 43% of Georgians to keep their opinions to themselves. On the election day, this 43% gave their votes to Georgian Dream and surprised everyone by precipitating Georgia’s first peaceful transfer of power.
The same thing is happening in reverse in the latest IRI poll. The UNM scored over 20% in elections in 2013 and 2014, and today’s sluggish economy and devalued lari mean more people now miss the Saakashvili era.
If the 23% of respondents who refused to answer or said they support no one are really hidden UNM voters, it would take UNM support up to 37%, about the same as Georgian Dream.
There is a long way to go before the next parliamentary elections in 2016, but if the polls are to be believed, and if you know how to read them, it is shaping up tobea closer race than many would like to believe.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan prepared for a presidential election on April 26 that will extend the 26-year rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s only post-Soviet leader. He called an election to impose his authority during an economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s government will have to dip into savings built up in its Oil Fund to prop up its ailing economy, economists have said.
They said the Azerbaijani government will not cut the state budget sufficiently despite a massive fall in the price of oil and gas.
“If the government does not cut budget spending the only real way to cover the deficit will be calling back State Oil Fund’s reserves abroad, or the government must have another big devaluation,” Samir Aliyev, an independent economist at the monthly Economic Forum magazine, told the Bulletin.
At Dec. 31 2014, the Oil Fund was worth around $37b.
The downturn in energy prices since last summer has hit Azerbaijan hard. It devalued its manat current by a third this year.
Rovshan Agayev, an independent economist, also told the Bulletin that even during the financial crisis of 2008 the government did not increase spending from the National Oil fund.
“This is a result of mismanagement of the state budget money for many years,” he said.
The independent MP Vahid Ahmedov told RFE/RL it was acceptable for the government to use cash from the fund, created in 1999, to prop up the economy.
“What was the Oil Fund is created for?” he said. “To save some money for the future generation and as well as to help the economy in crisis times.”
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A parliamentary inquiry in Armenia said the government subsidised gas for consumers between 2011 and 2013 ahead of a controversial buyout of the pipeline network by Russia’s Gazprom.
The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) said the government had previously denied it was subsidising gas imports from Russia.
The Armenian government was desperate both to retain support ahead of an election and to write off a $300m debt to Gazprom. To do this, it needed the public’s support to sell the pipeline distribution network.
The inquiry’s findings will pile more pressure on Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan whose administration has become increasing unpopular.
The RFE/RL report also said Gazprom cut the gas price when Armenia agreed to join the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“The commission has found documentary evidence of unpublicized Russian-Armenian agreements that gradually raised the gas price from $180 to $270 per thousand cubic meters in 2011-2013,” RFE/RL reported.
“Gazprom cut the price to almost $190 per thousand after Armenia agreed to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union in late 2013.”
This is yet more evidence that Russia pressured Armenia into joining the EEU.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a briefing, Senator Yertargyn Astayev, a member of parliament’s budget committee, said ministries might not have enough cash to fulfil projects unveiled by Mr Nazarbayev’s Nurly Zhol party.
According to Mr Astayev, the interior ministry, which deals mainly with law enforcement and migration issues, will soak up the largest budget cut of $225m.
But, importantly, Mr Astayev also said finances earmarked for large infrastructure projects were going to be “placed under strict control”.
The hint was clear. The investments envisaged by Mr Nazarbayev are under threat.
Economic turmoil in the region has forced Kazakhstan into cutting the budget.
Mr Nazarbayev said that various departments had to save a combined $3.3b.
And the cutbacks have caught the public’s attention too.
Rauan, a 43-year-old engineer from Almaty said the government should ditch various high-profile but less useful projects such as EXPO-2017.
“Now we are funding these projects, designed only to feed our pride, at our own expense,” he said. “Perhaps our ambitions are too high.”
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 25 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurlan Kapparov, a key member of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s inner cortege and head of the Kazakh nuclear agency Kazatomprom, died of a suspected heart attack while on a business trip to Beijing. He was 44-years-old.
Slick and Western-educated, Kapparov was part of the post-Soviet wave of loyal bureaucrats who helped Nazarbayev retain his grip on power. Having headed state energy company KazakhOil, been Kazakhstan’s environment minister and, most recently, head of the state nuclear agency KazAtomProm, sources said that Kapparov had the potential to be a senior government minister.
While he never openly showed such lofty ambition, his presence in and around the government was keenly felt. He acted in the shadows, influencing Kazakhstan’s transition to a more nationalist energy policy. In 2000, as a young vice-minister of energy he was able to negotiate an increase in Kazakhstan’s share of the Tengiz oil field, to the detriment of the US’s Chevron.
Kapparov was also a powerful businessman. The Lancaster Group — which can be traced back to him — is the conduit through which several joint ventures with oil and mining multinationals accessed the Kazakh market. With strong ties to ENI and Saipem, Kapparov had been president of the Kazakhstan-Italy Business Council.
Kapparov had been in China together with Kazakh PM Karim Massimov to strike a handful of multi-billion dollars deals. Ahead of the main deal-making day, he was discovered on the floor of a lavatory in a Beijing restaurant. He had died of a suspected heart attack.
Hundreds gathered in Almaty to mourn his death at the Academy of Sciences although, importantly, veterans and state officials were bussed in to increase attendance. The divide between the government and ordinary people in Kazakhstan is such that enough the sudden death of senior officials is greeted with indifference.
Ambition and acumen brought Kapparov to power and his loss will be felt by the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
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MARCH 26 2015, Almaty (The Conway Bulletin) – Cyan coloured labels proudly proclaiming “Made in Kazakhstan” have appeared in supermarkets across Kazakhstan, part of a government drive to promote local products.
Data collected by a Bulletin correspondent, though, suggested some labels may be misleading, perhaps even farcical.
At three supermarkets in central Almaty, basic agriculture goods — milk, cheese, yogurt — carrying the label did appear to be genuinely made in Kazakhstan but Italian chocolates and Belgian and French beer, all imported from Europe, also carried the label.
The Kazakh news magazine Vlast also looked into the veracity of the “Made in Kazakhstan” labels.
In its investigation, Vlast said that some ice cream and sweets sold as Kazakh had actually been made in Russia, part of the flood of Russian goods imported into Kazakhstan since the devaluation of the Russian rouble.
When Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev announced the “Made in Kazakhstan” drive earlier this year he wanted the label to stimulate the local economy. It currently needs more oversight or risks becoming meaningless.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 16 2015 (The Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon appointed his 27-year-old son Rustam to head up the Agency for State Financial Control, a government entity in charge of fighting corruption.
This is not the first public post Mr Rakhmon’s eldest son has held. Aside from local administration and nation-wide assignments he heads the country’s Football Federation and for a year was chairman of the Customs Service, a powerful government agency.
Mr Rakhmon is all-powerful having won a parliamentary election earlier this month which eliminated any pretence of a functioning opposition in the country.
Opposition groups have accused him of corruption and blatant nepotism. Other high-ranking officials have been accused of smuggling and drug running.
International observers have become increasingly exasperated with Tajikistan and Mr Rakhmon’s style of rule.
Mr Rakhmon barely acknowledges these accusations but promoting his son to head a senior government agency will hardly improve Tajikistan’s standing in the eyes of foreign investors and governments.
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(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)
FEB. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz parliamentarians threatened to nationalise the Kumtor gold mine by the end of March unless its Toronto-listed owner, Centerra Gold, agreed to a new joint-venture to run it.
The ultimatum increases the stakes in the long-running battle for control of the gold mine — Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest economic asset.
“We should finally end this epic,” Reuters quoted parliamentary speaker Asilbek Zheenbekov as saying after the parliamentary vote. “Today we adopted a tough resolution.”
The row over Kumtor has dented both productivity at the gold mine based in the eastern mountains of Kyrgyzstan and the country’s GDP as well as its image as a place for foreign investors to set up businesses.
Centerra Gold has accused Kyrgyz nationalists of wiping up public anger against Kumtor through bogus environmental infringements. Kyrgyzstan has said Centerra Gold needs to run and manage Kumtor more effectively.
The Kyrgyz government wants to swap its 32.7% stake in Centerra Gold for a 50:50 joint venture with the company directly in Kumtor. Commenting on Centerra Gold’s full year results last month, its CEO, Ian Atkinson, said he was studying the proposal. This non-commitment may be the source of the frustration felt by Kyrgyz lawmakers.
Now, the issue of Kumtor’s ownership will once again move to the foreground, potentially destabilising the country and damaging for its reputation further.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
