APRIL 21 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili launched his political party, Georgian Dream, which commentators have said could pose a genuine challenge to President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement party. At the founding conference, Mr Ivanishvili promised to scrap income tax for the poorest Georgians.
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(News report from Issue No. 085, published on April 27 2012)
APRIL 23 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kazakh court extended by 6 months a ban on Kazakhstan’s Communist Party, one of the few opposition political parties with nationwide support. The Communist Party was first banned in October for 6 months for colluding with an outlawed party. This ban covered a parliamentary election in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 085, published on April 27 2012)
APRIL 16 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A 73-year-old man died after setting himself on fire in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, media quoted the interior ministry as saying. Reflecting the frustrations of many people in Kyrgyzstan, the man had apparently been protesting about the lack of progress since a presidential election in October.
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(News report from Issue No. 084, published on April 20 2012)
APRIL 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An enraged Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s president, sacked his energy minister, Yarmukhamet Orazgulyev, for being a bad parent, media reported.
Mr Orazgulyev’s son had been racing through Ashgabat with other sons and daughters of the Turkmen elite, when he crashed his car. One person was killed in the crash.
It was not clear who died in the crash but Mr Berdymukhamedov’s irritation was clear.
Not only did he sack Mr Orazgulyev as the energy minister but he also sacked the head of the prestigious university where many of the offspring of the elite study.
The incident provides two useful insights into Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most repressive and secretive countries.
Firstly, Mr Orazgulyev’s reaction to his dismissal showed the extent of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s powers. State media described him agreeing with Mr Berdymukhamedov that he had been a poor parent and begging for any sort of job.
Secondly, the incident highlights the joy-riding, privileged lifestyles of the sons and daughters of the elite who appear to have been able to treat Ashgabat at night as their personal race track, with officials and policemen unwilling to challenge them.
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(News report from Issue No. 084, published on April 20 2012)
APRIL 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fierce campaigning began in Armenia for a parliamentary election scheduled for May 6. The election will be watched closely to gauge the level of support for Armenia’s vocal opposition against the Republican Party, which heads a government coalition. President Serzh Sargsyan belongs to the Republican Party.
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(News report from Issue No. 083, published on April 13 2012)
MARCH 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia held another presidential election, although none of the four candidates won a majority forcing the vote to a second round on April 8. The election was a re-run of an annulled election held last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 17 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – For a Pacific island nation with no connection to the former Soviet Union, Tuvalu has been taking an extraordinarily keen interest in the South Caucasus.
After an international aid donation from Russia, Tuvalu last year became the fifth country to recognise the independence of the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia has been drumming up support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the end of a war with Georgia in 2008 and the Pacific islands have been easily pushed in this direction.
Harder to comprehend is why Tuvalu, with a population of 10,500 people, and Armenia have now formally initiated diplomatic relations.
Perhaps the link is, again, Russia. Russia is an important ally of Armenia in the South Caucasus. It supplies Armenia with gas and pays rent on a large military base on Armenian soil.
Officially, no reason has been given for the new Armenia-Tuvalu diplomatic axis, although the Azerbaijani press is full of speculation the Pacific island nation is about to recognise the independence of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh (which Azerbaijan still disputes).
More likely, though, is that Armenia hoped to win favour with Russia by bolstering the credibility of Tuvalu’s South Caucasus diplomatic strategy. Unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia, at least Armenia is an internationally recognised nation state.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 27 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said on national TV that he wanted to create two new political parties, an agrarian party and a party for entrepreneurs, Reuters reported. Formally this would break the one-party state but in reality Turkmenistan would remain an autocracy.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in western Kazakhstan said they will charge 43 men with being involved in riots that killed at least 16 people on Dec. 16 in the town of Zhanaozen. Several police and officials have also been charged with employing excessive force and using live rounds to quell the riot.
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(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)
MARCH 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian public TV broadcaster, APTV, formally pulled out of the Eurovision Song Contest, to be hosted by arch-enemy Azerbaijan. Public broadcasters organise the national entrants for the competition and APTV’s withdrawal means Armenia will not be represented at the contest in May.
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(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)