Tag Archives: government

Armenia’s PM resigns

SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hovik Abrahamyan resigned from his post as Armenian PM, saying that new leadership was needed to restore confidence in the government.

Local media outlets in Armenia have touted Karen Karapetyan, former mayor of Yerevan and Gazprom Armenia executive, as the potential new PM.

During his resignation speech, Mr Abrahamyan, PM since April 2014, said that Armenia needed new leadership to restore confidence.

“In order to improve the current economic and social situation, both the government and the people need to make joint efforts, and this requires new approaches and new principles,” he said.

Mr Abrahamyan may have been trying to deflect criticism from Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan. President since 2008, Mr Sargsyan’s popularity has fallen recently.

In July a group of gunmen calling for a new government captured a police station, triggering a two week standoff with security forces. Three policemen died during the capture of the police station and the subsequent standoff. Hundreds of protesters, supporting the gunmen clashed with police, during the standoff, highlighting the frustration with the government.

Armenia’s economy has flatlined and promised improvements in relations with neighbours have not materialised. In the summer of 2015, protesters clashed with police when the government tried to increase prices for electricity. In April, too, fighting broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Comment: Mirziyoyev promoted to acting Uzbek president

SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament named PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev as interim president, another step towards confirming him as Islam Karimov’s successor.

Two days earlier, Mr Mirziyoyev had appeared to win the endorsement of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the region’s real kingmaker, when he visited Karimov’s grave in Samarkand.

Mr Mirziyoyev fills a power vacuum left by the death of Islam Karimov, independent Uzbekistan’s only president, last week.

According to Uzbekistan’s Constitution, the next-in-line for the top job, at least on a temporary basis, was the speaker of the Senate, Nigmatilla Yuldashev.

During a parliament session to name the acting president, though, Mr Yuldashev declined to take the job, saying that wasn’t experienced enough. Instead he endorsed Mr Mirziyoyev.

PM since 2003, the 59-year-old Mirziyoyev was born in Samarkand, also Karimov’s birthplace.

He was considered Karimov’s righthand-man and a like-for-like successor. Mr Mirziyoyev had already acted presidential during the mourning ceremonies after Karimov’s death, meeting with the world leaders who visited Samarkand for the funeral.

The last to visit was Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who said that stability and good relations were the chief objectives of his country’s relations with Uzbekistan (Sept. 6).

In Samarkand, Mr Putin appeared to endorse Mr Mirziyoyev, making all-but-certain that he would take over the top job.

“Of course, we hope that everything Islam Abduganiyevich (Karimov) had started will be continued,” he was quoted by Russian media as saying. “For our part, we will do everything to support this path of mutual development and the people and leadership of Uzbekistan. You can fully count on us as your most reliable friends.”

And Mr Mirziyoyev is likely to continue many of his predecessor’s policies which will worry human rights groups who have criticised the Uzbek leadership for presiding over one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Succession speculation stirs in Kazakhstan after reshuffle

ASTANA, SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev shifted Karim Massimov, one of his closest allies, from PM to head the country’s security services, an unexpected reshuffle that may prepare the way for a more significant promotion linked to his succession plans.

Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, previously a deputy PM, was appointed interim PM but he is likely to make way when Mr Nazarbayev proposes a new PM to parliament, which MPs will then rubber-stamp.

Dariga Nazarbayeva, Mr Nazarbayev’s daughter, who was named deputy PM one year ago is touted as a potential new PM and possible next president. Analysts have discussed other high-profile Kazakh officials but she is considered a front runner. Mr Nazarbayev is 76-years-old and his apparent lack of a succession plan was highlighted by the unexpected death this month of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s president.

Mr Massimov had served for the second time as Kazakh PM since April 2014. His move to the head the security services will help Mr Nazarbayev maintain his authority over the apparatus, considered essential for maintaining control over the country. Vladimir Zhumakanov, who had been head of the Security Service since December 2015, was appointed advisor to the president.

Mr Sagintayev, the interim PM, is a career bureaucrat who had been head of the Zhambyl region before becoming, briefly, in 2012 and 2013 Kazakhstan’s economy minister and then a deputy PM.

He is clearly trusted and was appointed head of the Kazakh atomic agency in 2015 after the death of one of Mr Nazarbayev’s favourites, Nurlan Kapparov.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Uzbeks worry about the future

BISHKEK, AUG. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human rights activists and Western analysts have lauded the death of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet leader and a man they detest for his cruel human rights abuses, but many ordinary Uzbeks are more worried about the potential instability that could follow.

A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Bishkek spoke to people in Uzbekistan who all said that Karimov’s death this week from a stroke was a worrying moment for the country.

Murodjan, a 26-year-old businessman who lives in the southern Uzbek city of Gulistan, said Karimov had done a lot for Uzbekistan.

“Any young politician who comes after him will struggle to maintain stability,” he told the Bulletin.

During his 25-year reign, Mr Karimov often talked up the dangers posed by Islamic radicals. His opponents said that he played the security card too strongly and that it was simply an excuse to crackdown on dissidents. They said that massive human rights abuses showed what a tyrant he was.

And yet the West appreciated the stability Mr Karimov was able to impose, using Uzbekistan as a key transit route for sending military kit into and out of neighbouring Afghanistan during NATO’s war against the Taliban.

Abror, 24, who lives in Tahskent, told the Bulletin before confirmation of Karimov’s death that he hoped the news was wrong.

“The authorities informed us that his health state is stable, I really hope this is the case,” he said.

He will be disappointed.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Uzbek President Karimov dies

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan declared that President Islam Karimov, its first and only leader since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, had died.

Throughout Friday speculation had been mounting that Karimov, who was 78, had died after a stroke six days earlier but it took until around 10pm local time for Uzbekistan’s government to confirmed it.

“On September 2 2016 after a long illness, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, an outstanding statesman and politician, died,” the Interfax news agency quoted from an official statement.

A news reader on an Uzbek government station later said that the funeral would be held on Saturday Sept. 3 and that there would be three days of official mourning.

Karimov was reviled by human rights activists for his abuses and cruelty but Western governments, and many Uzbeks, appreciated the stability that he imposed, although often through repressive police operations, on Central Asia’s most populous country.

After independence in 1991, Karimov steadily increased the state’s control over the country, forfeiting its natural place as Central Asia’s economic and cultural hub to neighbouring Almaty in Kazakhstan by closing off its people and its economy.

Karimov brooked no dissent. Dissidents and opposition were imprisoned and beaten. In 2005 Uzbek soldiers shot dead an estimated 300 people protesting against the government in the eastern town of Andijan.

The question now for Uzbekistan is who takes over. Karimov didn’t, publicly at least, lay out a succession plan and his eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who had been considered his natural successor has been under house arrest since 2014.

Media reported that PM Shavkat Mirziyoev had been appointed to head Karimov’s funeral committee. Some analysts said that this indicated that he was headed for the top job.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Comment: Uzbekistan’s quiet handover of power

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After years of jostling, the real battle for power in a post-Karimov Uzbekistan has started.

President Islam Karimov, who has ruled since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has died after suffering a stroke. Officially this means that the Speaker of the Senate, Nigmatulla Yuldashev, will take over for three months. Long-term, though, the picture is more complicated.

Uzbekistan has been in the throes of a proxy war over succession for two years, ever since Karimov’s eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova was placed under house arrest and her closest associates imprisoned for financial crimes. She had been seen as Karimov’s natural, if unpopular, heir-apparent.

Her fall from grace left PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Rustam Azimov, the finance minister, as the front runners for the top job.

The orchestrator-in-chief, it was assumed, was Rustam Inoyatov, the Uzbek secret police chief, who popped up in a rare photo during a visit to China in 2014. Reports from Uzbekistan, a notoriously repressive and reclusive regime, have suggested that he has been keeping a lid as best as possible on warring factions within the elite.

Certainly, Karimov appears to have played a reduced role in organising his succession since 2014. It is doubtful he ever wanted to place Gulnara, the daughter he doted over, under house arrest.

Gulnara’s sister, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, has been the most vocal senior Uzbek over Karimov’s illness but she has little support and lives in Europe and has previously shown no interest in power.

So, it’s likely the Uzbek regime will agree on an insider to take over from Karimov, either one of the front-runners or – and perhaps this is more likely – an obscure bureaucrat who comes with neither a power base nor an agenda. A compromise figure acceptable to Uzbekistan’s power-groups.

This method has been tried and tested with relative success in Central Asia previously with the handover of power to Kurbangbuly Berdymukhamedov, an obscure former dentist, in Turkmenistan when Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly in 2006. Berdymukhamedov has opened up Turkmenistan’s economy and made it a major source of gas to China. He has also built up a fairly serious personality cult.

Uzbekistan is a more complicated country than Turkmenistan but the power brokers inside the Uzbek government trying to work out their post-Karimov game plan do have a Turkmen blueprint to work from.

They may well choose to follow it.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Azerbaijan starts Gulenist purge

AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has started prosecuting people working in public offices allegedly linked to the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen who Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of orchestrating a coup attempt against him in July, media reported. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s strongest ally in the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan expects delay in state asset IPO

AUG. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will wait until 2018 to start selling off state assets in what has been billed for years as the People’s IPO, Baljeet Kaur Grewal, managing director for portfolio investment at Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund told Bloomberg in an interview. He said the fund wanted to wait for oil prices to pick up before selling various assets.

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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Uzbek president nears death after stroke

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov suffered a stroke on Saturday which left him with a brain haemorrhage, his daughter Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva said, setting up a succession battle over Central Asia’s most populous country.

Uzbekistan is, effectively, a lynchpin for stability in Central Asia. Its population of 31.5m is nearly as much as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan combined, it borders every other country in the region and had been the Soviet Union’s Central Asian administrative and logistical centre.

Under Mr Karimov’s rule, Tashkent lost out to Almaty as the commercial centre of Central Asia for Western multi-nationals but it still holds great sway at a more local level.

Mr Karimov has never publicly named a successor. His eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova, who had looked destined to succeed him fell from grace in 2014 over bribery allegations, leaving Uzbekistan set for a potentially messy succession battle.

Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva said her 78-year-old father had been hospitalised on Saturday after the stroke.

“At the moment it is too early to make any predictions about his future status,” she wrote on Instagram.

Uzbekistan is famed for its central role along the Silk Road, the fabled trade route several centuries ago that connected Europe and China.

Recently, though, Uzbekistan has earned a reputation for repression and for having a closed economy. Western companies have complained of state interference; accusations of slave labour have undermined Uzbekistan’s important cotton sector.

But the US, Russia and China — the major influences on Central Asia — will be hoping for a peaceful handover of power. The radical IS group has been growing in influence and the worry is that it may try to take advantage of any power vacuum.

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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Armenia’s president sacks security chiefs

AUG. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan sacked Hrant Yepiskoposyan, first deputy director of the National Security Service, after partly blaming him for a two week stand-off with gunmen linked to an imprisoned opposition leader who had captured a police station in Yerevan.

The standoff ended after the gunmen gave themselves up but not before it had triggered street battles between supporters of Zhirayr Sefilyan, the imprisoned leader of the radical opposition group Founding Parliament and a hero veteran of the war in the 1990s with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Dozens of people were arrested during the clashes, the worst in Yerevan for more than eight years.

Three policemen were also killed during the standoff which ended on July 31. Police have said that they were shot dead by the gunmen who captured the police station.

The authorities refused to release Mr Sefilyan, a key demand of the gunmen, but the standoff did trigger a serious constitutional crisis for Mr Sargsyan and has damaged his standing.

Analysts said that the capture of the police station and the support that the hostage-takers appeared to garner from ordinary people showed the level of frustration at Mr Sargsyan and his supporters.

“Many of them were almost certainly taking an opportunity to protest against the status quo, rather than endorsing an act of violence,” analyst Thomas de Waal wrote on the Open Democracy website.

“But even that is an indication of how desperate many mainstream Armenians feel in the face of a political system which they feel has no place for them — and which, due to recent constitutional changes, is likely to see Sargsyan and his team retain their grip on power for many years.”

Since the stand-off ended, Mr Sargsyan has sacked senior security officials. Kevork Kostanyan also resigned as the country’s prosecutor-general.

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(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)