OCT. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz security services arrested 11 people during a nationwide anti-terrorist operation just three weeks before a presidential election. The head of the state’s national security committee, Keneshbek Dushebayev, later said militant Islamists linked to al Qaeda planned to attack during the election.
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(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
OCT. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kazakhstan suspended for six months the opposition Communist Party for trying to team up with an unregistered party with links to exiled billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov who wants to unseat President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The ban could mean the Communist party misses the next parliamentary election which is scheduled for the first half of 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
SEPT. 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Campaigning started in Kyrgyzstan for a presidential election on Oct. 30. The central election commission whittled down 83 potential candidates to 20 but analysts don’t expect a winner in the first round and anticipate a run-off between PM Almazbek Atambayev, from the north, and a more nationalist candidate from the south.
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(News report from Issue No. 58, published on Sept. 27 2011)
AUG. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s ruling party, Nur-Otan, won all 16 seats available in a senate election, underlining its grip on politics. Nur-Otan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s party, controls all 47 seats in the Senate and all 77 seats in the Majilis, Parliament’s lower chamber.
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(News report from Issue No. 54, published on Aug. 30 2011)
AUG. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The pro-Russian rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia elected 59-year-old Alexander Ankvab as its new president. Mr Ankvab won 55% of the vote, easily defeating his rivals including PM Sergei Shamba who some analysts said had been the Kremlin’s favoured choice. Russia hailed the election’s transparency. Georgia dismissed it as illegal.
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(News report from Issue No. 54, published on Aug. 30 2011)
AUG. 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The numbers are certainly eye catching. According to Kyrgyzstan’s Central election Commission (CEC), 83 people registered as potential candidates for a presidential election on Oct. 30.
Hopefuls included journalists, the unemployed, a shepherd, political analysts and a handful of senior politicians including PM Almazbek Atambayev.
The Kyrgyz CEC will whittle down the list before campaigning begins on Sept. 25. The candidates have to pay a 100,000 som fee ($2,250), they have to collect 30,000 signatures and pass a Kyrgyz language test.
Then the serious business starts. The race is likely to boil down to a handful of leading politicians including Atambayev who is head of the Social Democratic Party. Atambayev’s main powerbase is in the north, his main rivals’ powerbase is in the south.
Kamchibek Tashiyev from the Ata-Zhurt Party and Adakhan Madumarov from the Butun Kyrgyzstan Party are two of Mr Atambayev’s main opponents. Both are nationalists from the south.
Kyrgyz politics in essence is based on tribal and regional loyalties. It is unlikely that anybody will win more than half the votes in the first round, triggering a second round between the two leading candidates — likely to pitch north versus south.
The real challenge for Kyrgyzstan is not pruning presidential candidates to a realistic core group but in avoiding a potentially destabilising north-south split. Kyrgyzstan, at the heart of Central Asia, has the ability to spread instability across the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz PM Almazbek Atambayev officially declared his candidature in the country’s presidential election. Mr Atambayev will head into the election race as one of the favourites.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s parliament officially announced a presidential election for Feb. 12. Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, president since Dec. 2006, has said that opposition groups are welcome to participate in the election. Opposition groups are currently in exile and have voiced reservations over the invitation.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
JULY 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov invited exiled opposition groups to return to the country for a presidential election scheduled for next year. Since becoming president in 2006, Mr Berdymukhamedov has said he wants to open up the authoritarian state although opposition groups said they doubted his invitation was genuine.
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(News report from Issue No. 48, published on July 12 2011)
APRIL 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – As expected, President Nursultan Nazarbayev won Kazakhstan’s presidential election. The Central Election Committee said Mr Nazarbayev won 95% of the vote with a turnout of 90%. International observers said they had recorded incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation.
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)