SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Parliament passed by 69-12 the second reading of a bill that will see the prosecutor-general’s position shift to a 6-year post elected by a 15-person body. Currently, the PM appoints the prosecutor-general on the advice of the minister of justice. Detractors of the bill say it is over-complicating the appointment process.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s First Deputy PM Tayirbek Sarpashev accused some political parties of hampering the Oct. 4 parliamentary election by trying to illegally collect voters’ biometric data. Mr Sarpashev did not name the parties.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
TBILISI/Georgia, SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A row has erupted in the Georgian Black Sea town of Batumi over damage to a statue of the South Caucasus’ most famous lovers — Ali and Nino. The opposition UNM party, the political machine of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, has accused the ruling Georgian Dream coalition of deliberating damaging the statue it erected in 2010.
Batumi has become a political battleground since 2012, when the Georgian Dream won a parliamentary election. Mr Saakashvili had treated Batumi as a pet project, lavishing cash, ornate buildings and grand designs on the city.
Now, though, the UNM accuses the Georgian Dream of pulling down many of these projects to undermine Saakashvili’s legacy in the city.
In a Facebook post, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of Odessa in Ukraine, said that under the guise of moving the statue, the Georgian Dream had irreparably damaged it.
“Today, with the support of Russian oligarch Ivanishvili, the moving statue Ali and Nino was destroyed.” he said. The Georgian Dream has dismissed the allegations. The statues of Ali and Nino had been sited at the entrance to Batumi’s harbour, a prominent position in the city.
Ali and Nino was first published in 1937. It detailed a love affair between the Muslim Azeri Ali and Christian Georgian Nino, and is supposed to symbolise eternal love and understanding between nations.
The statue was designed by Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze.
Lincoln Mitchell, a Tbilisi-based political scientist, explained just why Batumi attracted so much attention from the Georgian Dream.
“The UNM government spearheaded a dramatic modernisation of Batumi, a city that 15 years ago was a sleepy coastal town led by a nasty warlord.” he said.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Armenia detained 50 people during a protest against electricity price rises for businesses. The government backed down after a series of protests in July and said it would subsidise a 17% price rise for residential property but that businesses would have to pay it.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 14 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, officially quit as a member of parliament to begin her new job as a deputy PM.
Analysts have said that her promotion to government on Sept. 11 may have been the first stage in her journey to take over from her 75-year- old father when retires.
Certainly in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city and its financial centre, people interpreted her promotion as the start of dynastic succession.
David Smirnov the owner of a small trading business, said that he thought Ms Nazarbayeva would be a good fit for the top job.
“How could such a man have a bad daughter?” he asked, reflecting the popular support for President Nazarbayev. “So much money has been invested into her. She will be better than any other corrupt official, for sure.”
There has no official commentary from the Presidential Palace regarding Ms Nazarbayeva’s promotion.
Nessibeli Kozhakhmetova, a student, held a similar point of view to Mr Smirnov, the business owner.
“She knows from childhood how her father have worked,” she said. “She is better than someone whom we are not familiar with. She is trustworthy and the most reliable of the options.”
But, importantly, while most people told a Bulletin correspondent that they supported Ms Nazarbayeva’s promotion, there were some divergent opinions.
Aleksey, an advertising manager, was walking down a main street. He stopped and said quietly: “She might be a President but there is no trust in either the Presidency or Dariga.”
And KIMEP economics student Kamila Mukushova said Kazakhstan needed a break from the past and the Nazarbayev family’s grip on power.
“If she will be the President, then everything remains the same in the country,” she said. “We will still be dependent on Russia. We need a more open-minded leader.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Europe’s main election monitoring watchdog, the OSCE’s ODHIR, said it won’t send observers to Azerbaijan’s parliamentary election on Nov. 1 because the Azerbaijani authorities had imposed too many restrictions to make it worthwhile.
The decision by the OSCE not to monitor Azerbaijan’s elections for the first time since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 is a major snub to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and pushes relations between Europe and Azerbaijan to a new low.
At a press conference later in the week with Czech President Milos Zeman who was visiting Baku, Mr Aliyev said: “As you probably know already, cooperation between the European Parliament and the Azerbaijani Parliament has been suspended. This is the result of the dirty campaign being waged against us.”
On Sept. 11, Azerbaijan cancelled an EU delegation visit to Baku and also started the process of pulling out of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a group that pulls together the European Union and parliaments from the former Soviet Union.
The European Union and Azerbaijan have rowed over Mr Aliyev’s commitment to human rights and free speech. Azerbaijani officials have over the past couple of years detained and imprisoned several prominent human rights campaigners and journalists. Western governments have criticised Azerbaijan for the crackdown while Azerbaijan has said it is the victim of a smear campaign.
But the OSCE’s decision not to monitor Azerbaijan’s election is a watershed decision that pushes the one-time strong Western ally closer towards Russia.
The OSCE, which has never judged an election in Azerbaijan to be either free or fair, said that the conditions that the Azerbaijani authorities had set were just too restrictive to operate effectively.
It had wanted to place 30 long- term and 350 short-term monitors in Azerbaijan for the election but had instead only been allowed six long- term monitors and 125 short-term monitors.
“The restriction on the number of observers taking part would make it impossible for the mission to carry out effective and credible election observation,” the OSCE said in a press release.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the country’s main official opposition, has indefinitely postponed a congress it had planned for Sept. 15, media reported. The IRPT linked the decision to attacks in Dushanbe last week. Earlier this month the authorities also said the IRPT was illegal.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At an art exhibition in Paris, a reporter challenged Mehriban Aliyeva, wife of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, on whether she thought Azerbaijan was really a free country. The exchange was a rare challenge to the Aliyevs who has been accused of cracking down on free speech.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The signs have been there for all to see for the past two or three years. Now there can be no denying it. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appears to want to set his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, up as his successor.
Her rehabilitation into the mainstream of Kazakh politics has been carefully managed. First she won back a seat in the 2012 parliamentary elections, then in 2014 she appeared next to her father after his State-of-the-Nation speech and then she started to take over increasingly important roles, including deputy speaker of parliament.
More recently, Mr Nazarbayev has spoken about the Asian model of democracy. This was, it now appears, code for managed dynastic succession.
Kazakhstan needs stability at the moment. It is moving through difficult economic territory and it needs strong, talented, leadership.
But it also needs choice.
Ms Nazarbayeva, who has sung opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, certainly has the charisma, authority and the most famous surname in Kazakhstan, but is she the right person to lead Kazakhstan in the post-Nursultan era?
Infamously in 2013, at a parliamentary committee meeting, she described disabled children as freaks birthed by teenagers having sex too young. She sounded out of touch with ordinary people and drew heavy criticism.
There are other candidates, but Ms Nazarbayeva does now appear to be in pole position. What is certain is that the succession issue in Kazakhstan is, once again, at the forefront of the country’s politics.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Last week Tajikistan experienced some of its bloodiest fighting in recent years. Although the regime has been quick to label the rebels as “terrorists” sponsored by outside forces, the conflict is in fact the product of internal factors.
Tajikistan remains a mafia state. Different factions compete over the resources it has to offer. Government posts are not merely daytime jobs; they offer elites access to power and wealth.
With such a contested political economy, conflicts boil to the surface intermittently.
After the country’s civil war ended in 1997, some opposition warlords were incorporated into the regime.
Since signing the power-sharing deal, Emomali Rakhmon’s government has reneged on its promises, imprisoning, killing and exiling many of its former foes.
Not all of them have laid down their arms without a fight. Last Friday’s armed uprising is just the last in a series of conflicts involving former opposition strongmen.
Until recently, Major-General Abdukhalim Nazarzoda was one of the last remaining opposition commanders in government.
A skilful player of the political game, he rose to the rank of deputy defence minister in 2014. At the same time, he amassed a fortune through control of a bread factory, a poultry farm and other assets.
But last week his position came under threat.
According to a statement released by his supporters on September 6, the regime plotted to remove Nazarzoda for refusing to agree with the recent ban on the government’s main opponents, the Islamic Renaissance Party.
Instead of going quietly, he decided to go out fighting. And fight he did, leaving over forty people dead.
Dushanbe seems to have the situation under control for now. Despite sustaining heavy casualties, the security services have now neutralised most of Nazarzoda’s supporters, killing the general himself on September 11.
With the move against Nazarzoda, the regime has sent a clear warning signal to other commanders of dubious loyalty.
Not all of them will step aside without a fight.
Over the next few years Tajikistan’s fractious post-conflict state will sporadically erupt into violence.
By Edward Lemon, PhD candidate at Exeter University focusing on Tajikistan
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
