Tag Archives: government

Kazakh Central bank puts Nazarbayev on bank note

ALMATY, NOV. 15 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank unveiled a new 10,000 tenge bank note depicting a portrait of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, for the first time, next to an image of Astana, the capital city he built on the Kazakh steppe.

Mr Nazarbayev’s critics immediately criticised him for using the bank notes to embellish what they say is already a flourishing personality cult. Daniyar Akishev, head of the Kazakh Central Bank, though, brushed aside complaints and said the bank note was designed to celebrate 25 years of independence from the Soviet Union.

“All Kazakhstan’s achievements since independence are inextricably linked to the first president of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev,” he said.

Kazakhstan has been producing eye catching banks notes for years. It won the International Banknote Society’s banknote of the year award in 2012, 2013 and 2014. It’s colourful notes have generally included a historical figure one one side and a modern monument on the other, a meshing together of old and new.

Mr Nazarbayev, president since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has worked hard to create a united nation with a Kazakh identity. He has used monuments, slogans and banknotes to achieve this.

Many, though, say that his own personal brand, though, has grown too imposing. In 2011, Almaty city government unveiled a statue outside a park of a suited Mr Nazarbayev sitting on stone.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s Atambayev orders investigation into corruption by rivals

BISHKEK, NOV. 13 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev appeared to be taking his revenge on opposition groups who quit the government last month over his plans to hold a referendum in December that would change the country’s constitution.

Media reported that he had held a meeting with the head of the National Security Committee, Adil Segizbayev. At the meeting Mr Segizbayev told Mr Atambayev that the government of Belize had passed on information that a handful of Kyrgyz politicians had helped Maxim Bakiyev, the hated son of deposed former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, set up bank accounts in the Central American country.

Mr Segizbayev did not give any names out but in accompanying photos of documents linked to the case, the names of former justice minister Almanbet Shykmamatov, former general prosecutor Aida Salyanova and MP Omurbek Tekebayev are all clearly visible. They form the core of a group of MPs in the Ata Meken party who pulled down Kyrgyzstan’s coalition government last month. They have said the allegations, which haven’t shifted into charges yet, are unfounded.

Mr Atambayev can’t stand for another term as president next year and his rivals worry that he is tinkering with the constitution so that he can take over as an empowered PM once he leaves the presidency.

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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

EXPO bridge collapses in Kazakhstan

NOV. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A decorative bridge linking two pavilions in Kazakhstan’s headline EXPO-2017 project collapsed, only a few months before the exhibition is scheduled to open. Media reported that nobody was injured, unlike Kazakh pride. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has set much store in using EXPO-2017 to promote the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

Kazakh beer king imprisoned for funding coup

ALMATY, NOV. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A closed court in Astana sentenced Tokhtar Tuleshov, the self- styled beer king of southern Kazakhstan, to 21 years in prison for attempting to stage a coup against Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Prosecutors had said that Tuleshov had financed a series of anti- government protests in April and May that focused on land ownership. The breadth of the protests and their leaderless nature unnerved Mr Nazarbayev. Police arrested the protest organisers and charged Tuleshov, detained in January for unrelated charges of illegally owning weapons and fraud, with financing the demonstrations.

Tuleshov made his millions through the Shymkentpivo brewery, one of the biggest in Kazakhstan, in the southern city of Shymkent.

His supporters say that he has been framed and point out that it is not possible for him to have paid for the protests from prison.

An ostentatious and dapper figure, Tuleshov used to drive through the scruffy streets of Shymkent in a chauffeured Rolls Royce. Birthday parties for his daughter were lavish affairs with pop stars flown in to sing and guests dressing up in outlandish fancy dress.

The trial was held behind closed doors with journalists only allowed into the courtroom for the final verdict. Human rights activists have said that the arbitrary and closed nature of the trial worried them and could set a precedent.

Analysts have also speculated that Mr Nazarbayev and other senior members of the government from the central and northern tribes in Kazakhstan used Tuleshov to send a warning to high-ranking members of the southern tribe not to challenge their dominance.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Kyrgyz parliament approves new government

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament approved the composition of a new government, still dominated by Pres. Almazbek Atambayev’s Social Democratic Party, after a row over a referendum next month led to the collapse of the previous coalition. Two parties, Kyrgyzstan and Bir Bol, have entered the coalition and been given ministerial positions.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Uzbekistan ratifies ILO treaty on assembly

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an apparent bid to improve its international business image, Uzbekistan ratified a UN convention that protects workers’ freedom of association and businesses’ rights to form lobby groups.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed into law Convention no. 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN agency, which had originally been drawn up in 1948.

It is the 154th country, and the last in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, to ratify the Convention. Notably, the US, China and India are among the countries which have not ratified the Convention.

And for Uzbekistan this is something of a landmark. It has been the focus of criticism from international human rights activists, who denounced repression of the opposition and the lack of independent platforms for alternative dialogues.

Many Western clothing companies boycott Uzbek cotton because of its links to forced labour.

Foreign companies have also complained about the difficulties of operating in Uzbekistan, considered one of the most repressive countries in the world, and the ratification of the ILO convention may improve their lobbying potential.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Armenian President to see out term

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armen Gevorgyan, chief of the presidential staff in Armenia, said that, despite the country’s prospective transition from a presidential to a parliamentary democracy, President Serzh Sargsyan will continue to rule until his term, his second and final one, ends in 2018. Last December, a referendum approved the switch in the country’s form of government. Next year, Armenians will vote in parliamentary elections with a new electoral law. In the Central Asia/South Caucasus region, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have switched to parliamentary systems of government.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Insulting Tajik President becomes a crime

NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed into law a motion passed by parliament at the end of last year that insulting the president would become a criminal office, media reported. The new law underlines the increasingly autocratic nature of the regime that Mr Rakhmon has built up in Tajikistan. Last month, MPs also decreed that he should be given the title of Founder of the Nation.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kyrgyzstan patches together new government coalition

BISHKEK, NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan formed a new coalition government built around the Social Democratic Party, the party of President Almazbek Atmabayev, which kept Sooronbai Jeenbekov as PM.

The relative speed that parliament was able to patch together a government coalition will cheer investors and businesses who were worried about a prolonged period of instability. The previous government fell apart only 10 days ago over rows about an impending referendum.

Retaining Mr Jeenbekov, PM since May, will also boost confidence in Kyrgyzstan’s ability to withstand political stresses.

The new government coalition includes the Bir Bol and Kyrgyzstan parties, two minor parties. The coalition, though, only has a thin parliamentary majority with 68 seats in the 120-seat chamber.

A row over a referendum planned for Dec. 11 split the previous coalition government. The referendum focuses on giving more power to the PM, a shift that opponents of President Atambayev have said has been engineered to allow him to take the empowered PM job once he leaves the presidency next year. He has denied that he has such plans.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Georgian Dream’s election victory

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> This has been a long election period in Georgia. Is it finally over?

>> I agree, it really has felt like a long process. This is partly because of the long campaign build up and partly because of Georgia’s complicated electoral system. There have been two main election rounds. The first on Oct. 8 was nationwide and included both a proportional representation element and a majoritarian element. At the end of this process, there were 50 seats which still had not elected a majoritarian MP. In these seats the top two candidates went head-to- head in a run-off on Oct. 31, giving the final tally.

>> Right. So to win a majoritarian seat you have to poll more than 50% of the votes. Is that right?

>> Yes, that’s right. A majoritarian seat, as the name suggests, is not a simple first-past-the-post system. The winner needs to poll more than half the votes, that’s why 50 seats needed a run-off.

>> So what is the final result? What is the breakdown?

>> Overall, the Georgian Dream won 115 seats out of the 150-seat parliament. This means they passed the 113-seat hurdle they needed to clear to allow them to change the constitution without relying on support from other parties. Georgian Dream won around 48% of the vote but the majoritarian system handed them a large majority. In 2012 the Georgian Dream won 85 seats, so this election represents a major success for them. By contrast the United National Movement party of Mikheil Saakashvili saw the number of seats it won collapse to 27 from 65. It was a disastrous election for them. Despite their fighting talk in the build up to the vote, voters essentially rejected the UNM and any possibility of a return to mainstream Georgian politics for Mikheil Saakashvili. He is currently the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine. He’ll probably stay there for some time.

>> Is this it for the UNM, then?

>> That’s unclear but they need to have a major rebrand and to drop Saakashvili from their image. He comes with serious baggage, not least dire relations with Russia and allegations of torture in prisons during his time as president. The problem for the UNM is that he is such a dominating personality it might not be possible to just ditch him. To come back from that would represent quite a feat.

>> And, wasn’t there another party which did reasonably well?

>> Yes, the nationalistic and traditional Alliance of Patriots came up on the inside, unnoticed. It came third with just over 5% of the vote, giving it six seats in parliament. They are to the right of the Georgian Dream in their politics. The Industrialists party and an independent also won a seat each through the majoritarian system.

>> This gets complicated. So what does all this mean for Georgia?

>> Essentially this election confirms the Georgian Dream’s utter dominance. This is a crushing victory. On a policy level, the Georgian Dream has a constitutional majority to changes things as much as they want. They have already ripped up the form book in politics and they may want to do the same with society. They now have the power to do this and they have started already by promoting a change in the constitution that locks down marriage as an act only between man and woman. Georgian Dream has an agenda. They now have a four year window to impact how Georgian society operates. Expect some radical policies to come out of Georgia’s government in these four years.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)