OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The office of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was concerned of possible human rights violations linked to Tajikistan’s ban on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). It said the ban was an attempt to crush dissent.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On Oct. 4, Kyrgyzstan held parliamentary election marked by significant improvements in the country’s democratic development.
The elections have demonstrated the viability of Kyrgyzstan’s constitution adopted in 2010 that delegated more powers to the parliament and prevents the emergence of autocratic political power. Six political parties out of a total of 14 were able to pass the national and regional threshold, adding an important element of political plurality.
The elections are significant for three main reasons.
First, despite earlier skepticism, the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK), led by President Almazbek Atambayev gained only an estimated 38 seats out of total 120. This demonstrates that the president was unable to gain wide support despite his overwhelming influence over state media and the public sector.
Along with SDPK, the new parliament includes Respublika- Ata-Jurt bloc, Kyrgyzstan, Onuguu, Bir Bol and Ata-Meken parties.
Second, competing political parties tried to arrange their party lists to ensure both popularity and professionalism of their top members. As a result, the new parliament will include a greater number of powerful individuals better able to articulate their respective parties’ agendas. Greater professionalism in parliament can in turn boost the quality of political debates.
Finally, despite multiple cases of election fraud at voting booths and controversy surrounding a rushed collection of biometric data ahead of the elections, the electoral process was a progression towards greater transparency and accountability among political parties.
The government actively tried to eliminate fraud, while parties reported their campaign spending.
Televised debates featured representatives of competing parties who sought to distinguish themselves with creative policy solutions to pressing issues.
The new parliament will inevitably have a strong minority coalition either led by Respublika- Ata-Jurt block or will be composed of smaller parties aligning against SDPK.
But regardless of who will end up in the ruling coalition, the process of coalition formation is likely to be highly contentious and fraught with difficulties.
By Erica Marat, Assistant Professor at the College of International Security Affairs of the National Defense University, Washington DC
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan said it has reopened its embassy in Minsk, three years after it broke off relations with Belarus. In 2012, Belarus refused to extradite former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had been sentenced to prison in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan joined the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union in August. Belarus is also a member.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 4 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — At a parliamentary election, Kyrgyzstan held what observers said was the most democratic and transparent vote in Central Asia’s post-Soviet history.
The Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, the party of Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, won the elections with 27% of the vote, taking 38 seats out of parliament’s total of 120. This is an increase on the 2010 election when the Social Democrats won 28 seats.
The Central Election Committee said that of the 14 established parties at the election, six won more than a 7% share of the vote and would enter parliament.
Other than some technical issues with equipment designed to read some people’s identification, Western vote monitors from Europe’s OSCE passed off the election as broadly democratic and fair.
“Voting was assessed positively in 95% of polling station observed, it was orderly and well organised in the large majority of polling stations observed, and only relatively minor technical problems with the voter identification equipment and ballot scanners were reported,” the OSCE said in a statement.
And ordinary Kyrgyz took much pride in the Western monitors’ democratic assessment of the election.
Cholpon Dzhaparkulova, a 22- year resident of Bishkek, said: “Compared to other Central Asian and post-Soviet countries, elections in Kyrgyzstan went fairly and transparently.”
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 5 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Observers from Europe’s main election watchdog the OSCE said that parliamentary elections on Oct. 4 were “unique” in post-Soviet Central Asia.
At a press conference the day after the election, Ignacio Sánchez Amor, head of the short-term OSCE observer mission said: “These lively and competitive elections were unique in this region as, until 8 o’clock last night, nobody knew what the composition of the parliament would be.”
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov reshuffled his top security officials, according to state media. Begench Gundogdiyev, minister of defence, was demoted to head of the navy. The head of the national security service, Yaylym Berdiyev was appointed as the new defence minister.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan prosecutor-general Zakir Garalov accused a handful NGOs of straying outside the boundaries of their work permits and cooperating with journalists. Mr Garalov didn’t name the NGOs but the accusations could be interpreted as a warning ahead of a crackdown.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The imprisonment of a former mayor of Tbilisi from the opposition United National Movement (UNM) has underscored fears that Georgia’s governing Georgian Dream (GD) is using the judiciary to settle scores.
Gigi Ugulava’s conviction came just after the Constitutional Court ruled that holding him 14 months in pre-trial detention was unconstitutional and set him free. Twenty-four hours later a court convicted him of using his position to give out hundreds of jobs to UNM loyalists and sentenced him to 4.5 years.
A former youth leader representing the “new guard” that brought Mikheil Saakashvilli to power after the Rose Revolution, Ugulava entered the mayor’s office before he turned 30. After the GD’s victory in parliamentary elections in 2012, he was forced from office in December 2013 amid accusations of misuse of funds.
The conviction of Ugulava is a harsh blow to the UNM in advance of the pivotal October 2016 parliamentary elections, a repeat of the 2012 contest that toppled Saakashvilli and eventually led to his leaving the country and his citizenship rather than face criminal charges.
Like a number of UNM officials, Saakashvilli is now plying his reformism for the new Western darling Ukraine, where he is now governor of Odessa.
Saakashvilli’s energetic reformism in Georgia produced massive overhauls in public administration and policing that are still considered among the best in the non-Baltic former Soviet Union.
But his centralization of power and demonisation of opponents, including through Ugulava’s position as head of the capital’s administration, eventually sparked the Georgian Dream backlash.
Georgia is grappling with the problem common across Eurasia of how to consolidate rule of law after a transition in government.
Uprooting corruption may well require prosecuting former officials, but it is hard to escape the sense that GD is repaying UNM its own repression in kind, rather than building a common polity where diverse parties can compete without fear of persecution if they lose or fall out with the ruling elite.
The cycle of accumulation, revolution, and persecution appears on track to continue which is bad news for Georgian democracy.
By NateSchekkan, programme director at Freedom House
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said it would send an election monitoring team to Azerbaijan despite concerns over its human rights record.
There had been a growing expectation that PACE might follow its bigger European vote monitoring team at the OSCE’s ODHIR and cancel its planned mission to cover parliamentary elections on Nov. 1 in Azerbaijan.
But PACE has a softer reputation than ODIHR and has, in the past, been accused of turning a blind eye to Azerbaijan’s crackdowns on civil society. This year, though, it has vocally challenged the Azerbaijani president to improve human rights.
And Anne Brasseur, head of the Strasbourg-based assembly, confirmed that PACE would send a mission as part of its commitment to monitor democracy in the former Soviet Union.
“We decided to maintain the mission to Azerbaijan knowing that the human rights situation is not really good,” media quote Ms Brasseur as saying.
“We are going to observe several elections — elections in Ukraine, in Turkey, in Belarus, in Kyrgyzstan, and we are also going up observe the elections in Azerbaijan.”
Earlier this month ODIHR pulled out of covering Azerbaijan’s election after, it said, the government had halved its quota of observers. Its withdrawal pushed Europe-Azerbaijan relations — strained over the imprisonment of Azerbaijani activists and journalists — to a new low.
And without the ODHIR’s presence, Ms Brasseur said, Europe would not be able to make a full analysis on veracity of the Nov. 1 election. ODHIR had wanted to send 30 long- term monitors and 350 short-monitors to cover the election. By contrast, PACE’s deployment is far smaller.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 29 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — A village in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, a Muslim area that retains strong links to the North Caucasus, has elected a woman as its leader, media reported.
The election of school teacher Tamar Margoshvili, 55, as head of Duisi village is notable because traditionally only men could lead the village.
“I am not any less skilled compared to the men of the village,” media quoted Ms Margoshvili as saying.
Ms Margoshvili’s promotion is a victory for modernisers who will be heartened that a woman has been able to break through one of the most traditional societies in Georgia.
Renata Skardžiūtė, political scientist at the Georgian Institute of Politics said: “Women started gathering in clubs in different villages, then managed to create women’s council of elders, something quite unprecedented in Muslim communities.”
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
