Tag Archives: government

Tajik President daughter heads bank

JULY 18 2017 (The Bulletin) — One of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon’s daughters, 23-year-old Zarina Rakhmona, was appointed deputy head of Orienbank, a commercial bank, in January, media reported. News of the appointment has only just emerged as it was not announced at the time. The head of the bank is the President Rakhmon’s brother-in- law, Hasan Asadullozoda. Mr Rakhmon has steadily appointed his close family members into increasingly important positions. His son is the mayor of Dushanbe and his eldest daughter is his chief- of-staff.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

Turkmen President sacks finance minister

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JULY 11 2017 (The Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked Mukhametguly Muhammadov as finance minister in yet another public dressing down for a senior government official. Mr Berdymukhamedov has sacked almost his entire government over the past year in what analysts have said is an attempt to deflect blame for Turkmenistan’s stuttering economy.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Mirziyoyev sets up his own youth movement for Uzbekistan

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TASHKENT, JUNE 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — In a speech to hundreds of youth activists, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that he was renaming their organisation as the Uzbekistan Youth Union, a deliberate break from the Kamolot brand it had used under former President Islam Karimov.

Kamolot had been one of Karimov’s most successful propaganda tools, sweeping up thousands of people aged between 14 and 30. Kamolot, which means perfection in Uzbek, was set up in 2001 as a successor to the Soviet-era Komsomol. Its detractors said it was used by Karimov to create thousands of pliant Uzbeks who would spread his ideology. It was not compulsory to join Kamolot but those that did often found their path smoothed to good government jobs.

During his speech, Mr Mirzioyev, who appears to be relishing his role as the arch-reformer since taking the over the presidency in September 2016 a few days after Karimov died, said that Kamolot had been a narrow project aimed at promoting a few people above everybody else.

“The activity of the movement has been limited to a narrow circle, and was aimed only at its members. The youth who did not join the movement remained out of sight,” he said, also announcing a doubling of the youth movement budget to $51m.

Still, he appeared to contradict himself shortly afterwards with the appointment of 23-year-old Alisher Sadullayev, a former Kamolot member, as his education minister.

And people commentating online after the announcement were sceptical, suggesting that Mr Mirzioyev was aiming to ape Mr Karimov’s Kamolot rather than build a new all-inclusive youth movement.

“I don’t think that there will be a lot of difference between Kamolot and UYU (Uzbekistan Youth Union). The only difference I’m sure about is how UYU members will call them- selves the children of Mirziyoyev’,” one commentator said.

Another was more whimsical. He wrote on Facebook: “Kamolot is dead, long live UYU!”

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Armenian Prime Minister wants to stay on

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JUNE 21 2017 (The Bulletin) — Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan has hinted that he wants to continue in his job after 2018, the panarmenia.net website reported, when constitutional changes shift power to the PM from the President. Controversy has surrounded the changes as their opponents have alleged that President Serzh Sargsyan, in power since 2008, wants to become PM when his second and final term in office ends in order to secure power. If Mr Karapetyan wants to remain PM it may, potentially, set up a fight for power.

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(News report from Issue No. 334, published on June 26 2017)

Uzbek President sacks power company head

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JUNE 15 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev sacked Fazliddin Salomov as the head of Uzenergo, the state-owned electricity producer, for failing to generate more revenue from power sales. Electricity is a thorny issue in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Countries need to increase prices but risk upsetting ordinary people. In Armenia, street protests in 2015 reversed a drive to scarp power subsidies. Mr Salomov had only been in the job since Sept. 2016. He was replaced by Ulugbek Mustafaev, formerly the deputy head of the Jizzakh region.

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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)

Uzbek President sacks head of power company

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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)

Kazakhstan’s KMG readies for IPO

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JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company Kazmunaigas is in advanced stages of its preparations for an IPO next year, the FT quoted its CFO Dauren Karabayev as saying. The Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna owns 90% of the company and the Central Bank owns the other 10%. Kazmunaigas will list alongside Air Astana and Kazatomprom next year on the new Astana Stock Exchange. There is also likely to be a secondary foreign listing but it is currently unclear where this will be, although analysts have said that London is a favoured option.

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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)

Azerbaijan’s energy minister dies

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JUNE 9 2017 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s long-serving energy minister, Natig Aliyev, died in a hospital in Istanbul from a heart attack. Aliyev had the heart attack in Baku at the end of the previous week and was then flown to specialist hospital in Istanbul. He had been energy minister since 2005, although he generally played a less prominent role in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas affairs than President Ilham Aliyev and the head of state- owned SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

Uzbek President outmaneuvers Karimov’s heir

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JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s vicious political scene has just spat out another top dog. Rustam Azimov, the former collective farm engineer has been a fixture at the top of the Uzbek political spectrum since 1998, when he was handpicked by former president Islam Karimov, Uzbek leader from 1991 until his death in September, to head the economy ministry. Considered one of Karimov’s favourites, Azimov had been thought by many as the most likely person to succeed his patron.

In January 2008, in a diplomatic note later leaked by Wikileaks, the US ambassador to Uzbekistan at the time Richard Norland wrote that Azimov was being groomed as a successor.

“Azimov’s star is rising. Being appointed first among deputy ministers will only fuel additional speculation that Azimov may eventually succeed Karimov,” he wrote.

Media reports from 2012, cited sources within the Uzbek government as saying that Karimov was now openly talking up Azimov as his successor.

Instead, his rival Shavkat Mirziyoyev has outmanoeuvred him and Azimov now finds himself in the lowly position of heading the Export- Import Insurance company. His political ambitions, like that of Karimov’s daughter Gulnara, who has been under house arrest since 2014, are surely over.

It has been a long-running rivalry between Azimov and Mirziyoyev. In May 2008, Norland wrote that the rivalry had become so bad that the Uzbek security services had invented information to present a more united front.

“Due to rumours that rivalries persist between Prime Minister Mirziyayev (sic) and First Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov, the NSS (the Uzbek security service) also had fabricated information that both individuals had reached a rapprochement prompted by the burgeoning friendship between their wives,” he wrote.

Considered a smooth operator with a calmer temperament than the sometimes abrasive Mirziyoyev, Azimov also had plenty of experience dealing with foreign companies, often negotiating their entry into Uzbekistan on behalf of Karimov.

Prior to taking over as economy minister in 1998, Azimov was head of the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity. Now, aged only 56, as head of the nonentity that is the Export- Import Insurance company, he will have plenty of time to rue opportunities missed in the battle to succeed Karimov.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

Comment: Authority figures and democracy

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EDINBURGH, JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — This past week, politics in Britain have been overshadowed by the election meltdown and loss of authority of the British PM, Theresa May. She went from having a 20 point lead in opinion polls only two months ago to a single digit lead over Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, on election day. She won, but was returned a much diminished figure.

This is a stark contrast to the strongmen that rule Central Asia, where the democratic touch is so light. That doesn’t mean, though, that there isn’t plenty of political intrigue to enjoy and saviour in the region.

And this week has given us the story of how Shavkat Mirziyoyev has undone one of his key rivals for power, former economy minister Rustam Azimov. Once a potential Second President of Uzbekistan, he now finds himself heading up an entity called the Export-Import Bank. A story of power-plays and, possibly, betrayal.

There has been an apparent growth in grassroots movements in Uzbekistan. Our new correspondent reports from Tashkent on what has been described as the biggest protest in the country for 12 years. It’s great reporting on a very important story.

In Georgia and Azerbaijan the case of the abducted journalist continues to cause the authorities discomfort, as does the reminder that Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge is still an IS recruitment area.

On the business front, we report on China’s first foray into Kazakhstan’s banking sector and on olive oil production in Georgia.