JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream coalition said it won’t scrap the MPs elected via a first- past-the-post system for the 2016 parliamentary election. Last month the Constitutional Court said it backed reforming the voting system to make it fairer.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government presented new rules for workers which reduces their rights and forces unions to re-register with a government institution, a move which could damage relations between labour groups and companies.
Tamara Duysenova, the minister for health and social development, presented the bill at the National Congress of Trade Unions in Astana.
“The new provisions are in line with the spirit of the Law On Trade Unions approved last year,” she said.
The Unions disagree. Lyudmila Ekzarkhova, an official at the Confederation of Free Trade Unions, said: “These measures would put independent unions under the thumb of a government- appointed body.”
Opposition groups have criticised the measures which free employers from paying overtime work and cut benefits for injured workers.
The new law will also force independent trade unions to re-register under the state- controlled Federation of Trade Unions. Strikes called by unregistered trade unions will be illegal.
Relations between big companies and workers in Kazakhstan are already delicate.
Ever since oil workers went on strike in the town of Zhanaozen in the west of the country in 2011, a strike which triggered a riot and then a street battle with police that killed at least 15 people, workers’ rights in Kazakhstan have been strained.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan ordered the OSCE to close its office in Baku and barred Amnesty from visiting the city, triggering fresh criticism of its civil rights record shortly before President Ilham Aliyev opens the inaugural European Games.
Azerbaijan and the West have been locked in an acrimonious row over civil rights which has threatened to damage their fragile relationship.
Now the OSCE, as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is more commonly known, said that the Azerbaijani authorities had ordered it to close its Baku office.
“The government of Azerbaijan has notified the OSCE of its intention to close the organisation’s office in Baku,” AFP quoted the spokesman for the OSCE Baku office, Rashad Huseynov, as saying.
This takes relations between Europe and Azerbaijan to a new low. Among other roles, the OSCE is Europe’s democracy watchdog. It evaluates elections against European democratic standards.
Azerbaijan already has form, though. At the end of last year it raided and closed the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
London-based Amnesty also said it had cancelled a trip to Baku after the Azerbaijani authorities said that its delegation was not welcome to visit until after the European Games.
It’s a delicate relationship between Europe and Azerbaijan. While it may not like Azerbaijan’s attitude towards dissenters, Europe wants to buy its gas.
For Mr Aliyev, these are frustrating times.
He wants to increase the profile of Azerbaijan through sport and had hoped that the European Games, set to open on June 12, would act as the perfect launch.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
DILIJAN/Armenia, JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Once best known as a spa resort in the north-eastern mountains of Armenia, for the past couple of years Dilijan has also been a base for the Central Bank.
As part of a government plan to redistribute wealth around the country, the Central Bank moved 100 employees in the Central Bank’s research department and their families to this quiet, gentle mountain town of around 20,000 people.
“Central Bank’s move to Dilijan has had multiple effects,” the Armenian Central Bank chairman, Artur Javadyan, told the Bulletin on a trip to Dilijan.
“Our staff’s first concern was whether their children would have appropriate education and other facilities for permanent residence. This encouraged the Central Bank to create new and high quality infrastructures.”
It’s an ambitious project for the Central Bank to tackle. It had to build new infrastructure for its employees, such as schools, sports centres and apartment blocks, investments which have had positive drip-down effects on the local population, their shops and businesses.
And it appears to be paying off. The Central Bank employees who have moved to Dilijan, which lies in a national park, said they were enjoying the experience.
“It is great in here,” one said as birdsong floated across the air. “After a hard working day we go to play football, have some beer and rest.”
Nearby, a supermarket has experienced a boost in demand for products generated by the workers.
And Armenia’s newest financial hub — even if it is a small, embryonic one — is also a magnet for tourists interested in nature. Surrounded by forested mountains, Dilijan is famous for its natural springs which have attracted tourists from around the world.
“We’re so happy to see our city developing, where you can see the contrast of old and new,” said a Dilijan resident.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili said that he opposed stripping the Central Bank of its supervisory duties over the country’s commercial banks. As reported in last week’s Bulletin, reformers suggested that these powers should be given to an independent body.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government has put a building in the centre of Tbilisi which houses the economy ministry up for sale, the first lot in a batch of state property earmarked for privatisation. Media reported that the government expected to sell the building as a potential hotel for $6m.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s parliament said that it had started considering whether to scrap a law that bans people over the age of 70 from being president. This may sound arcane and fringe even, but it is also vitally important.
Repealing this law would allow current president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to remain in power for as long as he wanted.
There are already very few checks and balances on his powers. And, according to Eurasianet, the man chairing the commission looking into the idea of scrapping the law is Mr Berdymukhamedov himself. At 57-years-old, Mr Berymukhamedov may be thinking about his future.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – To rapturous applause from watching Turkmens, officials in Turkmenistan unveiled a golden statue of President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov riding a horse on a 21m high white marble plinth.
When Mr Berdymukhamedov came to power in 2007 he set out deriding his predecessor’s personality cult and opening the country up to the world. Over the past few years, though, his own brand of cult has mushroomed.
According to media reports hundreds of people sang and chanted as they watched the statue being unveiled in a central square in Ashgabat.
Britain’s Independent newspa- per quoted a man saying: “Arkadag works for the glory of our people from dawn to dusk.”
Arkadag means protector and is the people’s nickname for Mr Berdymukhamedov. Reports over the past few years, from winning horse races against obviously planted opponents to shouting at officials on TV, have painted Mr Berdymukhamedov as an increasingly autocratic and eccentric leader.
Europe, China and countries in the Middle East are trying to woo Turkmenistan and persuade it to sign various gas supply deals. Turkmenistan holds the world’s fourth largest gas reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the country’s parliamentary election process is unfair.
In particular, the Court said discrepancies in the size of the constituencies used for the first-past-the-post system diminished the election’s fairness.
In Georgia’s parliamentary elections, 150 MPs are voted into parliament. The first- past-the-post system is used to elect 73 MPs and proportional representation for the remain- ing 77 seats. The problem,advocates for change have said, is that the first-past-the-post constituencies vary in size from 6,000 voters to over 150,000 voters.
The landmark ruling strengthens the case for change.
“It’s up to the Georgian Parliament to decide on proportional and majoritarian models of the electoral system provided that constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens will be protected in this process,” Georgian media quoted the Constitutional Court as saying.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Four Georgian MPs quit the main opposition group the United National Movement (UNM), including the party’s executive secretary Zurab Japaridze. The UNM is former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s party. About a dozen UNM MPs have quit but Mr Japaridze is the most high profile.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
