Tag Archives: election

Election campaign heats up in Azerbaijan

AUG. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s opposition has picked Camil Hasanli, a prominent Baku history professor, as a reserve candidate to stand in October’s presidential election.

The main opposition group was forced to confer this unusual status on Mr Hasanli, 69, because Rustam Ibragimbekov, the opposition’s preferred candidate and a well-known Oscar winning sceenwriter, is likely to be disqualified later this week from standing in the election.

Mr Ibragimbekov holds joint Azerbaijan-Russia citizenship which, under the election rules, is illegal.

Mr Ibragimbekov appears to have either not realised his dual citizenship could be a problem or not been prepared to relinquish it in time to officially register for the election.

Conspiracy theorists also allege that, as a favour to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Russian officials have slowed up the process to cancel Mr Ibragimbekov’s Russian citizenship.

Either way, it looks bad for Azerbaijan’s opposition.

Making a dent in Mr Aliyev’s grip over Azerbaijan in the election was going to be difficult enough — he is running for his third term after 10 years in power and is almost guaranteed a large victory — but now it will be even harder.

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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)

Georgian PM’s TV station quits

AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili pulled his TV station Channel-9 off the air. Mr Ivanishvili had said he wants to distance himself from media ahead of a presidential election in October. Channel-9 had been strongly critical of Mr Ivanishili’s rival, the incumbent Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)

Turkmen president quits his party

AUG. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to burnish his democratic credentials, Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov resigned as the head of the ruling Democratic Party. Turkmenistan holds a parliamentary election in December and Mr Berdymukhamedov said he didn’t want to influence it. In reality both parties competing in the election are pro-presidential.

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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)

Problematic pre-election spending in Azerbaijan

AUG. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A pre-election spending spree on various social projects will push Azerbaijan into a budget deficit for the first time in a decade, Bloomberg quoted the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s as saying. Azerbaijan’s presidential election is scheduled for October. Ilham Aliyev is running for a third consecutive term.

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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)

Azerbaijan buys houses for journalists

JULY 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months before a presidential election, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev gave 155 journalists apartments in a new Baku housing block. Critics of the president said the move was a crude effort to manipulate the media.

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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)

New presidential candidate chosen in Georgia

JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — As expected, Davit Bakradze will represent the United National Movement party (UNM) in Georgia’s presidential election set for Oct. 27.

Mr Bakradze had to formally win the support of UNM delegates in six regions before officially becoming their candidate.

The 41-year-old Mr Bakradze won a seat in Georgia’s parliament aged 31 in April 2004 in the first parliamentary election after the 2003 Rose Revolution that had ushered Mikheil Saakashvili into power.

He is an experienced operator, taking over from Nino Burjanadze as head of the UNM’s parliamentary group in 2008 when she quit the party. Ms Burjanadze is also standing in the election as an independent. One of her election pledges is to see Mr Saakashvili prosecuted for various crimes that she alleges. Giorgi Margvelashvili, the current education minister, is the presidential candidate for Georgian Dream, a coalition headed by PM Bidzina Ivanishvili.

It’s lining up to be a colourful, and turbulent, time for Georgia. Its politics have always been partisan but since Mr Ivanishvili won a parliamentary election last year the animosity between the sides has become even more acute.

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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)

Georgia’s UNM loses Tbilisi City Hall

JULY 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s not over yet but Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has suffered a sharp fall in authority over the past nine months.

Lauded as the leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution that swept away the remains of the old Soviet power structures in Georgia, he has ceded authority across the country since his political party, United National Movement (UNM) lost a parliamentary election in October 2012.

The victors of the parliamentary election, Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and his opposition coalition, have gradually taken increased control of local councils as UNM deputies switched sides.

Police have also detained dozens of UNM deputies and business leaders on corruption charges.

Now, Mr Ivanishvili’s supporters have wrenched Tbilisi City Hall from the UNM. On July 20, Georgian media reported that members of the city council had voted out the Tbilisi city council leader after his support gradually drained away in the preceding weeks.

Coming before a presidential election scheduled for Oct. 27, the loss of Tbilisi City Hall will be another blow to Mr Saakashvili’s authority. For foreign business in Georgia, the next few months will be increasingly turbulent.

(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)

Azerbaijan’s opposition chooses candidate

JULY 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s opposition coalition announced that well-known screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov would be its candidate in October’s presidential election. Mr Ibragimbekov is best known for co-writing the script for the 1994 Russian film “Burnt by the sun” which won an Oscar for best foreign film.

(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)

Georgia chooses election date

JULY 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia will hold its presidential election on Oct. 31. Confusion had reigned, briefly, though over the date. Only three hours after a spokesman for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said the election would be held on Oct. 27, the head of the presidential administration announced the date of the vote as Oct. 31.

(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)

New MPs enter Turkmen parliament

JUNE 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has officially lost its one-party parliament after an election for five vacant seats voted in a member of the newly formed Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (PIE), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Analysts, though, have said PIE is a stooge party and is not genuine opposition.

(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)