DEC. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Underlining a trend towards the virtual deification of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s parliament declared Dec. 1 to be a new public holiday. The 1st day in December will now be known as the Day of the First President. Mr Nazarbayev has been president since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Political instability from a disputed Nov. 27 presidential election continues to stalk the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia.
After 10 days of protests the disqualified winner of the election Alla Dzhioyeva, a former education minister, agreed to call off further demonstrations.
In the deal Eduard Kokoity resigned as president on Dec. 10 and Ms Dzhioyeva will be allowed to challenge the Kremlin-backed candidate Anatoly Bibilov, the emergencies minister, in an election re-run in March. PM Vadim Brotsev will become the interim president.
Ms Dzhioyeva had shocked the Kremlin by winning around 56% of the vote in a second round run-off against Mr Bibilov. Both support close ties with Moscow but Ms Dzhioyeva ran a vigorous campaign against corruption while Mr Bibilov’s campaign appeared lacklustre and complacent.
A few days after the election, though, South Ossetia’s central election commission annulled the vote and banned Ms Dzhioyeva from a re-run for apparently bribing voters. She denied this.
South Ossetia, a mountainous sliver of land of 70,000 people, is awash with weapons and violence is never far below the surface. Since a 2008 war with Georgia, Russia has recognised the independence of South Ossetia and the other Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia.
Politicians in Georgia have likened the in-fighting to two squabbling mafia groups.
But social and political tension in South Ossetia and Abkhazia matters. It can spread easily and warm up one of the South Caucasus’ so-called frozen conflicts.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a glitzy ceremony in Tbilisi Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’ richest man, launched his new opposition movement. Analysts say Mr Ivanishvili and his movement, the Georgian Dream, could be a serious challenger to President Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement party.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will raise taxes to 25% from 20% for people earning over $5,250 per month in a 2012 budget which aims to reduce the national deficit and increase spending, local media reported. Detractors say tax increases will hit small and medium-sized businesses. Armenia holds elections in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan inaugurated Almazbek Atambayev as its fourth post-Soviet president, a ceremony that completed the first peaceful transition of power in Central Asia’s 20 years of independence. Mr Atambayev pledged to heal the country’s north-south divide.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – On Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev’s first full day in his new job the government coalition in parliament collapsed, highlighting the fragility of the country’s politics. The Social Democratic Party withdrew from the three-party coalition because of disagreements on judicial, economic and political reforms.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili pardoned two Israeli businessmen imprisoned earlier this year for offering a deputy minster a multi-million dollar bribe in October 2010. Roni Fuchs and Zeev Frenkiel had been jailed for 7 and 6-1/2 years souring Georgia-Israel relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A disputed parliamentary election in Russia on Dec. 4 triggered unprecedented anti-government street demonstrations in Russian cities, protests which will have worried leaders in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus have strong historical, business, family and political ties with Russia and what happens there matters.
Politics in Kazakhstan is similarly aligned to Russia and the country is confronting growing pains. President Nursultan Nazarbayev also has to deal with a parliamentary election on Jan. 15.
Although Mr Nazarbayev’s position is far more secure than his Russian counterparts’ he faces lingering issues over his succession policy and commitment to genuine democracy. The compliant Kazakh media has steered away from covering the Russia protests in detail but Mr Nazarbayev certainly wouldn’t want them to linger.
In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the media is even more tightly controlled and the impact of the anti-government protests in Moscow will be softer but, again, if they are prolonged they will start to worry their leaders.
In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan is most prone to an impact from street demonstrations in Russia. Its police force stamped out anti-government protests during the first half of the year and demonstrations in Russia could embolden protesters again.
It is premature to talk of a Slavic Spring in Russia but there is an air of change and this attitude could start to drip into other former Soviet states.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s Senate voted to cut the presidential term to five years from seven years in a move that means President Islam Karimov may legally be able to continue his reign despite being in the second consecutive and final seven-year term allowed in the Constitution. Mr Karimov’s current term ends in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
NOV. 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rafiq Tagi, a 61-year-old widely respected Azerbaijani journalist, died of stab wounds in a Baku hospital on Nov. 23, four days after an unknown assailant attacked him.
He wrote articles critical of both the state and hard line Islam. Muslim extremists, though, are suspected of organising Tagi’s murder.
Whether or not the authorities or Muslim extremists are the main threat, for local journalists the former Soviet South Caucasus and Central Asia states are often both difficult and dangerous to report on.
In Turkmenistan police this year tracked down and imprisoned journalists who reported on an explosion at an arms depot. In Uzbekistan most local correspondents from international news agencies have been chased out and in Tajikistan the BBC’s reporter was jailed.
Southern Kyrgyzstan remains dangerous for ethnic Uzbek journalists and in Kazakhstan in October attackers armed with baseball bats and a gun beat a camera crew covering protests in the west of the country against the state oil company.
A 2010 press freedom index compiled by the US-based NGO Reporters Without Borders scored the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia poorly. Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan ranked slightly better but Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were in the bottom quarter of the index.
The report card for 2011 may well be even worse.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)