Tag Archives: election

Georgia ministers resign

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The fallout from the sacking of Georgian defence minister Irakli Alasania rumbled on. As predicted, Georgia’s foreign minister, Maia Panjikidze, and minister for European integration, Aleksi Petriashvili, both also resigned.

They belong to the same party as Mr Alasania, the Free Democrats. The party also withdrew its support for the Georgian Dream coalition, wiping out its majority in parliament.

Mr Alasania was officially sacked for insubordination after he criticised the arrest of ministry of defence officials for alleged corruption.

These sackings weaken the government of PM Irakli Garibashvili. They have also created a potentially dangerous political enemy in Mr Alasania. He was one of the most charismatic ministers and could drum up support to challenge the government.

For now, though, Mr Garibashvili and his patron, former PM and leader of the Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili, were quick to deride Mr Alasania as an ambitious adventurer.

The coalition that Mr Ivanishvili created and that Mr Garibashvili leads had been built for one main purpose — to topple Mikheil Saakashvili from power. With that ambition achieved in parliamentary election in 2012 and presidential elections in 2013 it was always likely that the coalition was going to unravel. This unravelling is a natural re-balancing of Georgian politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Opposition unite in Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s main opposition parties, Respublika and Ata Zhurt, will join forces to form a coalition ahead of parliamentary elections in 2015, media reported. If it holds together, the Respublika- Ata Zhurt coalition could be powerful as it would bridge the country’s north-south divide.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Tajik security forces train in central Dushanbe

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik security forces donned full riot gear for a training exercise in central Dushanbe aimed at dealing with large anti-government crowds.The exercise was designed as a show of force against any anti-government movement that may be planning protests ahead of a parliamentary election in February.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kulov desires to rename Kyrgyzstan

SEPT. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps wanting an eye-catching policy to launch his campaign for next year’s parliamentary election, former Kyrgyz PM Feliks Kulov, a nationalist, has called for a referendum on renaming Kyrgyzstan as Kyrgyz El Republic, media reported. Mr Kulov said the suffix stan is an alien Persian word for country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)

Uzbek election campaign starts

SEPT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Campaigning officially began in Uzbekistan for an election to its 150-seat parliament set for Dec. 21, media reported.The election is largely a formality as all the parties are pro- presidential. Uzbekistan has been described as one of the most repressive and least democratic countries in the world.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)

Georgian rebel region votes for new president

AUG. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia voted in Raul Khajimba as its new president. Bucking expectations, Mr Khajimba won the vote in the first round, providing Abkhazia and Russia, its patron, with a show of unity. Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 2008. Georgia described the vote as illegal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 197, published on Aug. 27 2014)

Georgian Dream wins Tbilisi

JULY 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Dream, a political coalition set up in 2012 by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, completed its clean sweep of the country’s major political offices by winning a run-off in the Tbilisi mayoral election. Davit Narmania, the Georgian Dream candidate, won with nearly 75% of the vote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Georgian Dream wins regional election

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream has completed its clean sweep and defeated former President Mikheil Saakashvilil’s United National Movement (UNM) party in local elections.

Official results have not yet been published from Sunday’s local election but preliminary figures put Georgian dream ahead in most regions.

Overall, victory for Georgian Dream appears emphatic, pulling in 50.8% of the national vote compared to the UMN’s 22.4%, according to the election commission.

Georgian Dream is the party of Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili. It surged to power two years ago in a remarkable parliamentary election in which it defeated a seemingly indomitable UNM.

Last year, Georgian Dream also won a presidential election, propelling Giorgi Margvelashvili to power, and now victory in local governments completes its domination.

The UNM complained that irregularities had tarnished the election but European observers passed it as a legitimate expression of the popular will.

In Tbilisi, the Georgian Dream mayoral candidate will have to compete in a second round vote, but only because he failed, just, to take more than 50% of the votes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Lunch with a Kyrgyz MP

BISHKEK/Kyrgyzstan, JUNE 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dressed in a colourful striped shirt Narynbek Moldobayev is on first name terms with all the staff at this Italian restaurant in central Bishkek.

Moldobayev is the archetypal Kyrgyz MP and rather charming with it. Having moved seamlessly between three political parties in the last five years, his politics can be described as fluid — a common characteristic in Kyrgyzstan.

And it is this fluidity amongst the Kyrgyzstan’s political class, that’s important to examine as it is undermining, many say, Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy.

An MP who supported former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in a revolution in 2010, Moldobayev is now part of an opposition group that split from the nationalist Ata-Jurt party.

“I was never a nationalist,” he said as he tucked into a bowl of salad.

Moldobayev is 60-years-old and sentimental about the Soviet Union. He praises Russia unreservedly but is suspicious of China and its “desire to influence” the Central Asian energy sphere.

Moldobayev, primarily a businessman who made his money in the construction and oil industries, seems unbothered by the values of the party whose list he has paid his way to be on through donations. “Kyrgyz politics is built on personal gripes,” he said wearily, explaining why some parties in the parliament have effectively disintegrated.

Many say Kyrgyzstan’s political system might be more representative if it ditched party lists in favour of geographic constituencies. In the parliamentary vote in 2010 five parties took less than 40% of the vote creating a fractious, and many argue weaker, parliament. Moldobayev disagrees with this viewpoint, citing potential for “dangerous localism”.

There may be another reason, though. Since few people actually know who Moldobayev is and he might not win a seat.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

FDI increases in Georgia

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign investment in Georgia jumped to $260m in the first quarter of 2014, a 15% increase from a year earlier, the statistics agency reported. Foreign investment is a vital part of Georgia’s economy. The government has tried to restore investor confidence after two destabilising elections.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)