Tag Archives: government

Uzbek government set up to attract investments

APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed a law on setting up a government unit specifically to attract foreign investment, media reported. The State Committee for Investments will also be tasked with ensuring that the foreign investment is directed properly. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, in power since September last year, has said that he wants to attract more foreign investors.

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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)

Tajik president’s son gets elected into city assembly

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APRIL 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The son of Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon, Rustam Emomali, was officially voted in as a deputy in Dushanbe’s city assembly. The vote allows Mr Emomali to take over as mayor of Dushanbe, a move that marks yet another shift rise for a man analysts have said is being groomed to take over the top job from his father. In January, Mr Rakhmon appointed his son to be the acting mayor of Dushanbe, but he could only become the permanent mayor after he had been elected to the city’s assembly. He had previously been head of the government’s anti-corruption unit and head of Tajikistan’s football federation.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Republican Party easily wins Armenian parliamentary election

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YEREVAN, APRIL 2/3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s ruling Republican Party won a parliamentary election that will shape the country’s politics for years to come, although its opponents complained of vote- rigging and monitors said that there had been irregularities.

Victory for the Republican Party, though, didn’t trigger the outpouring of frustration and resentment that some had predicted and a Conway Bulletin correspondent in the capital said it was calmer now than in any previous election over the past few years. In 2008, protests dragged on until clashes between demonstrators and soldiers killed at least 11 people.

Much of the Republican Party support came from people unwilling to take a risk with the opposition.

“I had to vote for Republicans as I am a teacher which means I work for the state and I am paid from state and this is kind of a payback,” said a Yerevan-based teacher after voting.

Only four groups won enough votes to enter parliament which will wield more power after a change to the constitution that shifts power from the president to parliament.

President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party won 49% of the vote and will hold 55 seats of the 105-seat parliament. The Tsarukyan alliance led by oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan, generally considered to be sympathetic to the government, won 27% of the vote and will have 30 MPs. For the opposition, the Yelk (Way Out) bloc won 7% of the vote and Armenia’s Revolutionary Foundation party won 6%.

The assessment of the OSCE’s election monitoring unit, ODHIR, though, was less than flattering.

The elections were “tainted by credible information about vote-buy- ing, and pressure on civil servants and employees of private companies,” it said in a report.

The Conway Bulletin spoke to one person happy to take money in exchange for their vote.

“I wasn’t going to go at all, but my neighbour learned that they were buying votes,” said a 32-year-old man in Yerevan. “They paid 10,000 dram ($20.66) per person and explained how to vote.”

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Azerbaijani president approves tourism plan

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MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev approved an action plan that is designed to boost beach tourism in the country, media reported. The plan will run to 2020 and is designed to improve infrastructure for tourists wanting beach holidays along Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast. A sharp fall in the price of oil has forced Azerbaijan to try to diversify its revenue streams.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Uzbek authorities soften punishments

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MARCH 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed into law bills that soften sentences for some crimes and also cuts pre-trial detention times, state- run media reported. If the laws are upheld it will mark a victory for human rights activists who have long complained about Uzbekistan. Mr Mirziyoyev is trying to unwind some of the worst excesses of Islam Karimov’s rule.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Turkmen president sacks his energy minister

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APRIL 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked the experienced Yashigeldy Kakayev as deputy PM responsible for overseeing the oil and gas sector, perhaps the most important position in his administration, for “shortcomings”, state media reported.

In his place, Mr Berdymukhamedov promoted Maksat Babayev, who was appointed to head Turkmengaz in January.

Mr Berdymukhamedov is all- powerful and although he spoon- feeds ordinary Turkmen with data that suggests the economy is running smoothly, anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise.

He also appears to need to protect himself from any culpability for Turkmenistan’s economic problems, linked to a sharp fall in the price of gas – its main revenue earner. This means he has to shift blame onto his ministers and senior officials who he appoints and fires with increasingly regularity.

Mr Kakayev had been appointed energy minister under very similar circumstances in 2015 when his predecessor was also sacked for “shortcomings”.

In the cabinet reshuffle, Mr Berdymukhamedov also fired deputy PM in charge of agriculture, Redjep Bazarov.

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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Georgian parliament overrides presidential veto

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MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s president overrode a veto by President Giorgi Margvelashvili over a bill that will give the government far reaching surveillance powers. Mr Margvelashvili had objected to the bill because he said it was too expensive to create an agency solely to increase surveillance of people suspected of aiding and abetting terrorism and also of criminals. He also said, and this was possibly his main point, that it was unclear if the new agency would be independent. Relations between Mr Margvelashvili and the Georgian Dream government are strained.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Turkmen president’s son takes another key role

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MARCH 21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the only son of Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has been appointed chairman of parliament’s legal affairs committee, an influential position. Pres. Berdymukhamedov started to promote his son last year, sparking claims that he was grooming him to be his heir. Mr Berdymukhamedov junior was first promoted to a senior position within the foreign ministry and was then, a short time later, made an MP.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Azerbaijan signs up another lobby group

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MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has signed BGR Government Affairs to lobby for its interest in Washington, the Politico website report. Politico said that Azerbaijan was paying BGR Government Affairs a $50,000/month retainer for its services. Azerbaijan already has the Podesta Group on a $45,000/month retainer. Its critics have previously accused it of spending too much on lobbying while it limps through an economic downturn that has pushed the economy into a recession.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Georgian government to move ministries out of town

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MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s government announced plans to build a so-called Government City on the outskirts of Tbilisi to house ministries. Announcing the plan at a government meeting, PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said that it would bring all the government’s offices together around the civil service, which has already moved out of town, give the construction sector a boost and free up space in the centre of Tbilisi for new hotels and offices.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)