MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev tasked his Social Democrat party with forming a government after the Ata Meken party walked out of a coalition, causing it to collapse earlier this month. Forming a stable government from Kyrgyzstan’s fractious parliament is notoriously difficult.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting nepotism in Tajik officialdom, Ashraf Gulov, the son-in-law of President Emonali Rakhmon, has been made head of the state Tax Committee’s internal audit department, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The impact of Kazakhstan’s 20% currency devaluation last month is beginning to filter through to business.
Kazakh senator Mikhail Bortnik said that unless JSC International Airport Aktau could restructure its dollar-denominated debt, it would go bankrupt.
JSC International Airport Aktau, which under a deal with Mangistau regional government is owned by Turkish company ATM until 2025, has re-built Aktau airport’s passenger terminal and runway over the last few years.
It is now Kazakhstan’s third busiest airport, behind Almaty and Astana, and hosts flights from Baku, Kiev, Moscow and central Europe.
But after February’s tenge devaluation the $47m debt that Mangistau regional government took on to re-build the airport from the state-run Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has become 20% more expensive to service.
The problem for the DBK is that if it agrees to restructure the Aktau airport debt, it may have to restructure several other company debts too.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament voted to tinker with the country’s constitution and pass some of the president’s powers to the PM. President Islam Karimov first suggested the changes in December last year. It may be that he has been forced to reduce his powers by his increasingly powerful rivals in the security services.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The third government coalition of Kyrgyzstan’s relatively young parliamentary democracy collapsed after the Ata-Meken faction walked out, accusing PM Jantoro Satybaldiev of corruption.
The coalition collapse ends Mr Satybaldiev’s premiership and throws up questions over Kyrgyzstan’s negotiations with Canada’s Centerra Gold over ownership of the Kumtor Gold mine — worth roughly 10% of Kyrgyz GDP. Mr Satybaldiev has stood up to demands to nationalise the mine and earlier this year negotiated a new equity deal. It’s unclear if that deal will still stand after his exit.
The three-party coalition had ruled Kyrgyzstan since September 2012 but a furore over the early release from jail of a Chechen crime baron and accusations that Mr Satybaldiev personally profited from the rebuilding of the south of the country after riots in 2010 have dogged his premiership.
The economy, too, has limped along, frustrating many.
Just how the coalition collapse will affect President Almazbek Atambayev reminds to be seen. He may have to call a parliamentary election to form a new government. A change in Kyrgyzstan’s constitution handed it a powerful parliament in October 2010.
One thing is certain, though, the latest government collapse highlights how politically unstable Kyrgyzstan is.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a decision that provoked international condemnation from human rights groups, a court in Azerbaijan sent two opposition leaders to jail for organising illegal demonstration.
Human rights groups accused the court of being politically motivated, a charge they have used against Azerbaijan’s judiciary often over the last few years.
The US State Department backs up this analysis. Earlier this year in its annual global human rights assessment, it said that the authorities were increasingly persecuting opposition groups.
A court spokesman said that Tofig Yagublu, deputy head of the opposition Musavat party, and Ilgar Mammadov, leader of the Republican Alternative human rights group, were sentenced to five and seven years in prison.
Police arrested them in February 2013 and accused them of organising unrest in the town of Ismailli in January 2013. The unrest in Ismailli, 200km northwest of Baku, was the worst during President Ilham Aliyev’s 11 years in power.
Giorgi Gogia, senior researcher in the South Caucasus for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, wrote a withering analysis of the verdicts.
“Another day, another imprisonment of prominent government critics in Azerbaijan,” he said.
“Instead of looking into the underlying causes of such an expression of mass rage and there are many, starting with astounding government corruption the authorities decided to find convenient scapegoats who fit the false narrative of critics-as-enemies.”
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss investigators said they had started investigating Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, for money laundering. They had previously been investigating four people linked to Ms Karimova. Ms Karimova is reportedly currently under house arrest in Tashkent.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s parliament voted in a new anticorruption law, although in reality it is little more than window dressing.
The law basically states that civil servants are restricted from private business and opening foreign bank accounts. The thinking is, it seems, that government officials are prone to corruption temptations. Perhaps by banning officials from private business, the government hopes to look pro-active in defeating corruption.
It has a long way to go. Corruption is rife in Turkmenistan, as the US-based Heritage Foundation noted in its global report on economies in 2014.
“Corruption is widespread, with public officials often forced to bribe their way into their positions,” the Heritage Foundation wrote on Turkmenistan.
Out of the 178 countries it ranked, the Heritage Foundation placed Turkmenistan at the bottom for both “property rights” and “freedom from corruption”.
Passing legislation is one thing but acting on it is another.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kenes Rakishev, the high-profile son-in-law of Astana mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov, has been appointed director at Kazakhstan Engineering . Kazakhstan Engineering is owned by Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. It mainly works with the ministry of defence to maintain military equipment
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Acting as a peacemaker, the Aktobe regional government in north-west Kazakhstan stepped in to mediate in a labour dispute at an oil field operated by China’s state-run energy company CNPC.
The move highlights what appears to be Kazakhstan’s preferred policy when strikes are threatened — to appease labour unions rather than antagonise.
Kazakhstan is desperate to avoid a repeat of an oil workers’ strike in the western oil town of Zhanaozen in 2011 which ended in violence that killed at least 15 people.
Kazakh workers at CNPC AktobeMunaiGas say that they are treated unfairly, paid less and live in worse conditions compared to their Chinese counterparts.
This is a not a new complaint and, although China is a key energy client, Kazakhstan has pushed to improve worker conditions at Chinese companies. And this was no exception.
“The Commission recommended that managers improve the system of remuneration and create conditions for the production in accordance with labour laws,” the Aktobe government said in a statement.
Importantly sources in Aktobe said the threatened strike now appears to be on hold.
CNPC AktobeMunaiGas is one of Kazakhstan biggest oil producers, producing around 6m tonnes each year.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)