Tag Archives: politics

Georgian region sets election

JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia has set its upcoming presidential election for April 9. The incumbent leader of South Ossetia, which declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and was recognised by Russia and a handful of other countries as a separate nation in 2008 after a Russia- Georgia war, is Leonid Tibilov. He has said he will compete in the election to try to win another, and final, five year term. The election is likely to raise tension with Georgia.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Trial for editor begins in Kazakhstan

JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial for extortion of Bigeldy Gabdullin, editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, began in Astana. Mr Gabdullin has admitted to charges that he blackmailed officials into paying him bribes not to publish negative stories. His supporters have said that the confession was extracted under duress and that the 61-year-old was hoping that by agreeing to the confession he will be given a light sentence.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Two new opposition parties emerge from one in Georgia

TBILISI, JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two new parliamentary minority factions — European Georgia and European Georgia for a Better Future — have emerged from the group of 21 MPs who quit the UNM opposition bloc earlier this month, leaving the once all-powerful party of former president Mikheil Saakashvili barely surviving.

The party split did not take people by surprise. Disagreements among party members had become increasingly vicious and public, especially after the UNM’s crushing defeat in October’s parliamentary election. Many of the arguments focused on whether the divisive, bombastic Mr Saakashvili, who now lives in exile in Ukraine, should still play a role in the UNM.

In an email interview with The Conway Bulletin, Akaki Bobokhidze, one of the MPs who left the UNM, said that Mr Saakashvili, who was president from 2004 until 2013, was now a political hindrance.

“Saakashvili thinks that it is not possible to defeat Bidzina Ivanishvili [the patron of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition] and to change the government through elections,” he said.

“There is a difference in how those who stayed and those who left evaluate the past and the errors that the UNM made, especially in the human rights field. The two groups take considerably different views of the party’s future.”

The 56-year-old Mr Bobokhidze is one of the most experienced MPs in parliament having won his seat in 2001 as a member of the now defunct Initiative Group. Known for his fiery temper, he has been involved in brawls inside parliament.

Mr Bobokhidze’s had been a staunch ally of Mr Saakashvili and it was clearly with some reluctance that he agreed to split from the main UNM party. It was only in December that he was urging the party to unite around Mr Saakashvili.

“Saakashvili is the politician that made the corrupt post-Soviet Georgia into a successful country. Regardless of his position in the party, I hope he will remain a successful politician in Georgia’s political history,” he said in his interview.

Mr Bobokhidze said the new parties’ focus would be on winning control of local councils at municipal elections later this year and then concentrating on building alliances to win back power in parliamentary elections scheduled for 2020.

And this collaboration could still that the remaining UNM parliamen- tarians, Mr Bobokhidze’s former col- leagues, have a role to play.

“Our new party is open for collaboration with all the parties that shares our values and think that the informal governing of Ivanishvili is damaging our country,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakh court cuts Ex-PM jail sentence

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, cut an eight year jail sentence handed out to former Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov for corruption to 1 year and seven months because of an amnesty granted by President Nursultan Nazarbayev last year to mark the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence. Akhmetov had been PM between Sept. 2012 and April 2014. He was convicted in Dec. 2015. Under the new term, he should be due to be released shortly.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Comment: Nazarbayev tightens the screws in Kazakhstan, writes Kilner

JAN. 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — There is a sense of deja vu hanging over Kazakhstan.

In the west of the country, hundreds of oil workers are on a hunger strike over the closure of the country’s trade union umbrella body. In Astana the hollowing out of the media continues with the trial of Bigeldy Gabdullin, editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, while police arrest government officials for corruption and for leaking state secrets.

All these events are the result of deliberate government policies.

Let’s take the oil workers’ strike first. Reports from Zhanaozen say that an estimated 400 workers are now on hunger strike. They worry that while the government says that it wants to improve their rights and working conditions, they are actually being undermined. The government is determined to exact revenge on the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan for what it sees as its role in organising and politicising oil workers in 2011. Strikes, then, ended with a riot in Zhanaozen and the shooting dead of at least 16 oil workers by police.

The Kazakh authorities see the unions as a threat to central government and a court in Shymkent earlier this year ordered the closure of the Confederation

for allegedly not being registered properly several years ago. Suspecting a government stitch up, the workers have chosen to strike.

As for Gabdullin, he has apparently already admitted extortion of government officials. The charges may be true or they may be fabricated, it’s difficult to say in Kazakhstan where fact and fiction melt into one. Either way, the 61- year-old Gabdullin appears to have decided that it would be best to admit wrong doing and hope for clemency rather than try to defend himself against the state.

The Kazakh government has worked tirelessly to undermine journalists over the past few years, locking up high profile free-thinkers or forcing them into exile. The case against Gabdullin is a continuation of this policy.

And finally, the rounding up of various government officials for corruption.

This may be, as presented, a case of clearing out corrupt officials but it may also be the case, as some analysts are saying, that Nazarbayev is using the cover of an anti-government purge to wipe away potential troublemakers before he reveals his succession plan.

In all three arenas — workers’ rights, the media, central government — the Kazakh government is extending and deepening its authority.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Georgia president criticises new gas deal

TBILISI, JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili criticised a high-profile gas deal struck with Russia by energy minister Kakha Kaladze as a threat to national security, exposing a deep fissure in Georgia’s politics.

Commenting on a new agreement that will see Russia pay to transport gas across Georgia to Armenia, instead of giving Georgia 10% of the volume on a barter arrangement, Mr Margvelashvili’s official spokesperson, Eka Mishveladze, said Mr Kaladze was playing a high-risk game.

“The issue of Gazprom is more than just a business agreement, this is security, foreign policy and geopolitics first and energy and economy after that,” she said.

Although elected on a Georgian Dream ticket, Mr Margvelashvili has increasingly distanced himself from his former colleagues, preferring to present himself as an independent voice. Georgia is set for a presidential election in 2018.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Armenian oligarch Tsarukyan plots political comeback for parliamentary election

YEREVAN, JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months before a parliamentary election in Armenia, Gagik Tsarukyan, a millionaire arm-wrestler, said he was going to return to politics and head the country’s second largest political party — the Prosperous Armenia party.

Mr Tsarukyan’s political come- back is important because changes to the constitution, due to come into force in 2018 when President Serzh Sargsyan steps down, mean power is shifting from the presidential office to the parliament. Parliament, and its composition, after April’s election will govern the country.

In a broadcast on his Kentron TV channel, Mr Tsarukyan, 60, said he was returning to Prosperous Armenia, the party he set up, because of the poor state of the economy.

“Since my decision to leave the political arena, there has been no political figure that has been able to fill my role,” he said. “I would have refrained from returning to politics if I were certain that our country was headed in the right direction.”

In a parliamentary election in 2012, the Republican party won 69 of the 131 seats and Prosperous Armenia won 37. The rest were split between four other parties.

Two years ago Mr Tsarukyan, who owns businesses spanning alcohol production to diamond cutting and dealing, quit politics after arguing with Mr Sargsyan over the constitutional changes.

But analysts now say his return may be designed to bolster the ruling party’s power in parliament rather than to present any real opposition.

Richard Giragosian, director at the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, said politics in Armenia is personality driven and that Mr Tsarukyan was able to appeal to a constituent that would not vote for the Republicans.

“Tsarukyan’s role in the coming elections will be very much to capture votes from people who would ordinarily vote for the opposition,” he said.

Styopa Safaryan, head of the Armenian Institute of the International and Security Affairs, agreed.

“Tsarukyan’s return is more a challenge for Armenia’s opposition party’s rather than current leadership and the Republican party,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Candidates register for Pres. election in Turkmenistan

JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s Central Election Commission said that nine candidates, including incumbent Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, had registered to stand in a presidential election set for Feb. 12. Mr Berdymukhamedov, standing for his third term, is expected to win. Western observers have never judged a Turkmen election to be free or fair.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakh police arrest pension fund chiefs on corruption allegations

ALMATY, JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh court ordered the arrest of the state pension fund’s top managers on corruption allegations, severely denting the public’s trust in one of the state’s flagship financial organisations.

The arrest of the pension fund’s chairman, Ruslan Erdenaev, the director of financial risk management, Musa Bakhtov, as well as two directors from two different mining companies, is just the latest in a series of high profile corruption cases in Kazakhstan which have even included a former economy minister.

And ordinary Kazakhs, who are already struggling to deal with the impact of a sharp economic downturn that has wiped 50% off the value of the tenge, destroyed jobs and savings, are voicing their frustrations increasingly vocally.

In Almaty, Inna Kisilenko, a mother of a six-year-old boy, shrugged her shoulders.

“Time will tell,” she said. “But honestly I feel doubtful. They [the government] increases the pension age and makes up other things.”

The pension fund arrests were ordered after the Central Bank asked the security services to investigate a deal between the fund and two mining companies worth 5b tenge ($15m) in November.

And the $20b pension fund is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. It was created in 2014, when the government forced banks to merge their pension funds into one single state-controlled unit. Kazakhs questioned the motive of such a move. This grumbling turned to outrage when news emerged in the summer that the fund had lent members of the elite cash to finance construction of a shopping centre.

Natalya, 50, summed up people’s feelings.

“I just don’t trust it [pension fund],” she said. “I think it is not right because times are hard. I think about how elderly people survive with their pension money. Everything is getting more expensive, rent, groceries.”

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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Tajik President appoints son as mayor

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon appointed his eldest son, Rustam Emomali, to be the mayor of Dushanbe, attracting accusations of nepotism. Mr Emomali, 29, previously headed the government’s anti-corruption unit and is head of the Tajik football federation. Analysts have said that Mr Rakhmon is grooming his son to take over from him.

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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)