SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Mehriban Aliyeva, wife of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, has registered as a candidate in parliamentary elections on Nov. 1, media reported. Ms Aliyeva has not previously shown any political inclination.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 20 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik security forces detained 13 leaders from the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and accused them of being linked to attacks this month that killed two dozen people.
Pressure has been mounting on the IRPT, the only real opposition party in Tajikistan, over the past few months. It’s leader, Muhiddin Kabiri, has fled into exile and the ministry of justice has said that the IRPT has to disband because it lacks members.
Now, the Tajik authorities have allegedly seized documents from IRPT office in Dushanbe that proves it was involved in attacks apparently lead by a disgruntled former deputy defence minister.
The IRPT denied links to attacks on two police stations on Sept. 4.
And on the streets of Dushanbe, this is view shared by some residents.
“I don’t think that IRPT are involved. The government is apparently getting rid of former Civil War opposition members,” a Dushanbe resident called Yahyo said.
A Dushanbe analyst agreed and said that Pre.s Rakhmon had used the attacks to get rid of opponents.
“Rakhmon will further centralise the regime with these lies being his main tool,” he said, anonymously.
The authorities also said they killed Gen. Abduhalim Nazarzoda, the ex-deputy defence minister blamed for organising the attacks (Sept. 19).
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A group of men dragged Smbat Hakobian, a member of an Armenian opposition group, away from a march and beat him, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. HRW said this was the 2nd time an opposition activist had been beaten in the past year.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 21-23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Even at a European human rights meeting, it seems, calling President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov a dictator is just not acceptable.
This was the irate response, at least, of a deputy minister of foreign affairs when he slapped down a Turkmen dissident at an OSCE arranged human rights meeting in Warsaw.
Responding to a series of criticisms raised during the meeting, deputy foreign minister Vepa Khadzhiyev listed President Berdymukahmedov’s achievements in bringing “cheaper and more objective information to our citizens.” He also dismissed criticism from human rights groups of a decision to remove thousands of satellite dishes from homes in Ashgabat in April. Human rights campaigners had said this was the behaviour of a dictator.
Opposing Mr Khadzhiyev was the former member of Turkmenistan’s parliament now living in exile in Norway Pirimguly Tangrikuliyev, who openly criticised Western countries for cosying up to Mr Berdymukhamedov.
“They court the dictator because they need access to Turkmenistan’s energy resources,” he said.
This irritated Mr Khadzhiyev who asked rights groups not to use the term “dictator” for Mr Berdymukhamedov.
“A dictator does not provide free electricity, gas and water to his population. Our country increases salaries yearly by 10% and provides free education and healthcare,” he said.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Most Kyrgyz migrant workers will not be able vote in the parliamentary election because they have failed to submit biometric data to the authorities before the deadline. The Zamandash opposition party told RFE/RL that only around 10,000 out of 700,000 Kyrgyz living in Russia will vote in the Oct. 4 election.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fourteen parties will appear on the ballot for voters in Kyrgyzstan to elect from on Oct. 4, yet from social media to taxi chatter, the complaint is of a lack of genuine choice. The menu contains the familiar set of several dozen politicians, from several parties that sound all too similar.
What the complainers ask for may be too much, one might say. The uninspiring choice may actually be the only thing that contemporary democracy can offer. Politicians seek reelection, parties try to cater to as wide a spectrum of voters as possible, and none of them accept the risks involved in running on sharply defined and innovative policy platforms.
But wait. Even by the modest standards of latter-day democracy, Kyrgyzstan may be scoring too low.
That 75% of sitting deputies are seeking reelection may be normal, but it cannot be normal when an enormous number of them are on tickets of new parties, often very different from their original parties.
There is a tendency in Kyrgyz politics for the protagonists to swap parties regularly and for new parties to emerge, confusing the electorate and cementing the feeling that the election is more about personalities than policies and issues.
None of the parties has seriously criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. No party is anything close to pro-Western or critical of Kyrgyzstan’s over-reliance on Russia. All are happy about the Eurasian Economic Union.
All are anti-corruption, pro- government-efficiency, pro- national-unity and a list of other goods, with no detail on how to attain them.
In an election which, thus, seems to be all about personalities, all the main parties are parading decidedly mixed lists of candidates. Popular politicians next to infamous ex- officials; progressives next to conservatives; wealthy business owners next to underpaid teachers; law enforcement leaders next to those with criminal past; young candidates next to old.
Thus, the voters are facing a long ballot with little variety and more than a bit of confusion.
Lacking genuine choice, they are left to vote either for the President’s Social Democratic party, to keep things the same, or for a party linked to their clan or family.
These growing pains – if this is what they can be called – are not good signals for a more democratic Kyrgyzstan.
By Emil Dzhuraev, Lecturer in politics at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -Has Europe’s democracy watchdog, the OSCE, shot itself in the foot by deciding not to monitor Azerbaijan’s up and coming parliamentary election?
Certainly it must have been irritating that the Azerbaijani authorities had told the OSCE that it can have barely half the number of monitors it had asked for on the ground. But that feels like scant justification for pulling out altogether.
Instead, this feels personal.
The Azerbaijani authorities have been in menacing mood, pressuring anybody in their way and this has included the OSCE. Earlier this year, the OSCE closed its office in Baku under pressure from the Azerbaijani authorities.
Now it feels that the OSCE has been able to exact some sort of payback by crying foul over monitor numbers, pulling its observation team from Azerbaijan’s Nov. 1 election altogether and drawing yet more international condemnation on Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.
But this is, surely, an opportunity missed.
Would it not have made more sense to monitor the election as best as possible with limited resources. That way the West can improve its understand of what is going on in Azerbaijan and maintain closer contact with ordinary Azerbaijanis.
There will be other Western vote monitoring teams at the election but without the size and experience of the OSCE team, the West is severely limited and this is a crying shame.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s interior ministry said security forces had killed the fugitive former deputy defence minister Gen. Abduhalim Mirzo Nazarzoda after a manhunt spanning nearly a fortnight. The authorities in Tajikistan have accused Nazarzoda of masterminding two attacks on police stations in Dushanbe and a nearby town on Sept. 4 that killed two dozen people.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik government has presided over an “steady, unmistakable decline of freedom of expression”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement referring to the clampdown on the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev used the 550th anniversary celebrations of the Kazakh khanate to espouse on one of his favourite topics — nation building. At the celebrations, he called on the country to be known as the Land of the Great Steppe.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
