SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOFAZ, Azerbaijan’s sovereign oil fund, said it would reduce by 20% its transfers to the state budget, in an effort to balance the country’s economy. In 2017, SOFAZ plans to give the government 6.1b manat ($3.8b). This year, SOFAZ forecast a total of 7.5b manat ($4.6b). As of July 1, SOFAZ holds $35.1b in assets and reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s new PM Karen Karapetyan named Shushan Sardaryan, ex- press secretary of Gazprom Armenia, as an advisor. Previously, Mr Karapetyan served as the director of Gazprom Armenia, the Russian gas giant’s Armenian subsidiary.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – >> Azerbaijan held a referendum this week to tweak its constitution. Didn’t Tajikistan have one in May and hasn’t Kyrgyzstan said it will hold one in December. What’s with all these referendums?
>> The autocrat’s textbook says that every so often you need to call up a referendum to make changes, big or minor, to the constitution, and also to show off just how popular you are. They all have their peculiarities and differences, but leaders from Central Asia and the South Caucasus have all played the referendum card.
In May, 92% of Tajikistan’s voting population turned up to extend presidential powers.
This week, a referendum in Azerbaijan proposed 29 small-scale amendments to the Constitution, which were overwhelmingly adopted, of course.
In the coming months, Kyrgyzstan is likely to have a referendum to grant more powers to the PM.
In previous years, countries across the region have held several referendums. Essentially the aim has been to change the Constitution to allow the incumbent to remain in power by scraping limits on terms, age caps, the length of each term.
>> OK, but are these changes meaningful? Do they have a real impact on politics?
>>These kinds of referendums can be meaningful. From a legal point of view, they change the law. They scrap age requirements to become president — as was the case in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan — and transfer powers from the president to the PM — like Kyrgyzstan’s referendum proposes.
In practice, however, their main aim is for the presidents to retain power or to transfer it to their offspring. There have been notable, and honourable exceptions, of course but not many.
Tajikistan’s referendum this year scrapped limits on presidential terms and lowered the age that a person can run for president to 30 from 35, potentially allowing President Rakhmon’s son, Rustam Emomali, to run for office in 2020.
Azerbaijan had already scrapped limits on presidential term in a referendum in 2009. This time round it lowered the age requirement to 18 from 35 and gave the president the right to dissolve Parliament. President Aliyev’s son Heydar is 19 now. This may be a coincidence, of course.
>> And what about Kyrgyzstan?
>> Kyrgyzstan is a little different. President Almazbek Atambayev will have to leave office next year after his term expires. Some have speculated that, in an effort to avoid losing power he is trying to strengthen the office of PM where he would like to return once he steps down next year.
Certainly his reasons for supporting changes to the constitution are not entirely clear.
The key difference, once again, with other countries in Central Asia, is that Kyrgyzstan’s democracy has advanced further.
>> So, essentially, most of the more seriously autocratic leaders in the region, that’s Azerbaijan and Central Asia with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, have all used referendums to improve their chances of holding on to power? By contrast Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have held referendums in the last few years to boost the power of Parliament over the presidency? Is that right?
>>More of less, although it is important to understand that the drivers of referendums in Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan can also lie in self-interest with incumbent presidents hoping to hold on to power by becoming PM.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The website of the Uzbek PM’s office introduced a comment section for the first time, allowing citizens and registered companies to file complaints and suggestions electronically directly to the PM. The section is highly visible on the homepage of the PM’s website. Citizens can also file their requests through a hotline or by visiting the regional headquarters of UzLiDeP, the ruling party.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Atyrau city government denied a petition by Mothers in White Headscarves, a women’s protest group in Kazakhstan, which sought to hold a rally on Sept. 17. Public protests against worsening economic conditions in Kazakhstan have been becoming more frequent in Kazakhstan. Around 1,000 Atyrau citizens demonstrated against a proposed land reform in April, the largest protest in Kazakhstan for the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
BISHKEK, SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev cancelled a trip to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York because he was feeling unwell and was suffering from chest pains.
Instead, Mr Atambayev diverted his plane to Istanbul where he checked into a hotel and was examined by doctors. Only four hours later Mr Atambayev flew down to Izmir on the Mediterranean coast for a break and to convalesce. He would, his press team said, be back at work by next month.
On Friday, he was reported to have flown to Moscow for more treatment.
In Bishkek, speculation swirled across kitchen tables, bars and shops over the state of the President’s health, his no-show at the UN General Assembly and his unscheduled stopover in Izmir and Istanbul.
Rita Karasartova, an opposition activist, said “While Atambayev is in Turkey, there could be arrests (of opposition activists) here. After the arrests, Atambayev could say he did not know anything about it because he was out of country.”
Other, pro-Atambayev analysts, disagreed.
Mr Atambayev has cut a divisive figure. He has proposed constitutional amendments to hand the PM more power and quarrelled with his predecessor Roza Otunbayeva.
And his health has been the focus of speculation previously. Two years ago he took to walking with a stick. His press team said that he had a knee condition but they couldn’t stop the image of a frail-looking president.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustam Kusainov, former adviser to the ministry of economy, was appointed managing director of the government-owned Baiterek holding. Former minister of economy Yerbolat Dossayev is Baiterek’s CEO. Mr Kusainov’s took the IT portfolio at Baiterek. The holding administers several companies in the financial and insurance sectors.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)f
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Acting Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev fired the governor of Jizzakh, his native province in the east of the country, for ‘serious shortcomings’. The phrase is a hollow formula that former President Islam Karimov used often when firing an official. Abdukahkhar Tukhtayev will now replace Asror Kobilov, who had been in charge since 2009, as the Jizzakh governor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Venice Commission, a panel of constitutional experts working under the Council of Europe, criticised the upcoming referendum in Azerbaijan, which calls for an extension of presidential terms from five to seven years and other laws which it said would consolidate power in the hands of President Ilham Aliyev.
In a statement, the Venice Commission said that the proposed legal amendments will effectively allow Mr Aliyev to rule indefinitely.
“Many proposed amendments would severely upset the balance of power by giving unprecedented powers to the president,” the lawyers of the Venice Commission said in a statement.
Azerbaijani officials said that the Commission was out of line in judging the proposed amendments which will be voted on in a referendum on Sept. 26.
“The referendum doesn’t expand presidential powers, this is about improving governance,” Shahin Aliyev, head the Presidential Administration’s law unit, told local media.
Mr Aliyev has already tinkered with Azerbaijan’s constitution when he scrapped a limit on presidential terms in 2009.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Dariga Nazarbayeva, the recently- appointed Senator and eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, dismissed rumours regarding her role in a potential succession to her father. At a press conference in Astana, she said she was a proud servant of the country and a member of the presidential team, and that she holds no further ambition. Analysts believe she could be being lined up as a successor.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
