MARCH 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a sign of escalating tension in Armenia, around 10,000 anti-government protesters defied riot police to temporarily occupy the centre of Yerevan’s main square. Police had barracked off Freedom Square but withdrew when the crowd approached. Protesters have called for snap elections.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
MARCH 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Anti-government protesters in Armenia may draw inspiration from revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East but their demonstrations are very different in character.
This year protests in Armenia have grown steadily and on March 17 roughly 10,000 people occupied Freedom Square, Yerevan’s main square. Protesters have promised a revolution unless President Serzh Sargsyan calls an election. They accuse him of nepotism and corruption, allegations he denies.
But unlike the Tunisia and Egypt uprisings these protests are neither leaderless nor spontaneous.
Opposition groups in Armenia and their leaders are well established. Levon Ter-Petrosyan is a former president and heads the Armenian National Congress. His fiery speeches have whipped up anti-government sentiment.
He is not the only opposition leader. The US-born Raffi Hovannisyan is a member of parliament and leader of the more moderate Heritage Party.
Hovannisian started a hunger strike in Freedom Square on March 15. Two days later the protesters occupied the square but Ter-Petrosyan and Hovannisyan avoided speaking to one another, a visible sign of their disagreements. These divisions weaken the opposition.
The protesters and their demands also appear rooted to 2008 when Mr Sargsyan won a disputed election victory and 8 demonstrators died in a clash with the security forces.
Armenia’s next presidential election is set for 2013 and Mr Sargsyan has already said he will stand.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
MARCH 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev’s victory may be assured in Kazakhstan’s April 3 presidential election but a contest is emerging over turnout. The authorities want turnout to hit around 80% but the main opposition parties are boycotting the election and are campaigning for a no vote. To counter this, TV stations and celebrities have been persuading people to vote.
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(News report from Issue No. 31, published on March 14 2011)
MARCH 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through Yerevan to mark the deaths in 2008 of eight people during clashes between security forces and protesters. Opposition leaders said 50,000 people attended the rally while the authorities said 10,000 had marched, Armenian media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
MARCH 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Constitutional amendments appear in vogue in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Georgia fiddled with its Constitution to shift power to the PM from the president in 2013, just as Mikhail Saakashvili leaves the presidency, and Kazakhstan nearly amended its constitution through a referendum to extend President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term in office until 2020.
Now the lower house of Uzbekistan’s parliament has passed President Islam Karimov’s ideas for constitutional amendments. For the amendments to become law, the Senate needs to approve them.
Hailed by lawmakers as step forward for democracy, the amendments will mean that parliament nominates the PM and can also trigger a vote of no confidence in the premier.
But as Mr Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan since 1989 and parliament rubber stamps his decisions, analysts said these changes were aimed at appeasing the West rather than spreading real democracy.
Perhaps the more important amendment is the specification that if the President is unable to perform his duties, power shifts to the speaker of the Senate. Currently, the constitution states that parliament should elect a temporary leader followed by an election within three months.
Observers said this amendment may have been designed to both smooth a transition of power from the 73-year-old Mr Karimov and sideline potential rivals. The current head of the senate is the largely unknown 52-year-old Ilgizar Sobirov, who is leader of a small Uzbek region.
The information flow from Uzbekistan is light but these constitutional amendments do indicate that the political landscape is shifting.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
MARCH 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s lower house of parliament voted to amend the country’s Constitution and devolve some power from the president to Parliament. The amendments also stated that if the president becomes incapable of running the country then power passes to the head of the Senate, Parliament’s upper chamber.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
MARCH 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and 3 other candidates started campaigning for the April 3 election. On the eve of the campaign US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that access to their local website had been blocked. The authorities said there had been a technical problem.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
FEB. 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US ambassador in Yerevan, Marie Yovanovitch, said during a speech to students and activists that Armenia needed deep reforms to move to a more democratic society, media reported. March 1 is the third anniversary of post-election clashes in Yerevan during which 10 people died.
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(News report from Issue No. 29, published on Feb. 28 2011)
FEB. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At Armenia’s largest anti-government rally since the 2008’s disputed presidential elections, opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan said unless fresh elections were called the country would face demonstrations of the kind that have swept across the Middle East. Media estimated 10,000 people attended the rally.
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(News report from Issue No. 28, published on Feb. 21 2011)
FEB. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The main opposition party in Kazakhstan, Azat, said it would boycott an April 3 presidential election. Azat, which means freedom in Kazakh, said President Nursultan Nazarbayev had breached the Constitution by calling the snap election and that there was also not enough time to prepare for the vote.
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(News report from Issue No. 27, published on Feb. 14 2011)
