DEC. 28 2022 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev pledged to slash the size of the country’s bureaucracy by 30% to save up to $250m. His detractors have called the pledge a gimmick designed to deflect negative headlines, mainly around corruption and a lack of gas and power for households.
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— This story was published in issue 532 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Jan. 16 2023
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DEC. 21 2022 (The Bulletin) — Vasif Talibov, the repressive leader of Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave, quit after 26 years for health reasons. He had been given the job by Heydar Aliyev, father of the current Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev. Human rights groups had highlighted Nakhchivan under Mr Tabilov as being particularly repressive and corrupt. Analysts had said that Mr Aliyev would want to exert more direct control over Nakhchivan after his victory over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Shahin Mirzayev, the emergencies minister, was appointed head of the region (Jan. 17).
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— This story was published in issue 532 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Jan. 16 2023
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OCT. 27 2021 (The Bulletin) — Rivals Kakha Kaladze of the Georgian Dream party and Nika Melia of the United National Movement party held their final rallies before an election on Oct. 30 to become the mayor of Tbilisi. This runoff election was triggered because Mr Kaladze, the incumbent, failed to win more than 50% of the vote in the first round of the election earlier in October.
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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021
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TASHKENT/OCT. 24/25 2021 (The Bulletin) — Shavkat Mirziyoyev won a presidential election in Uzbekistan with 80% of the vote in a process that Western observers said lacked genuine competition.
Speaking at a carefully stage-managed victory rally at the headquarters of his Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party, the usually somnolent Mr Mirziyoyev pushed a triumphant and upbeat message.
“I promise to make every effort and potential to justify the high trust of our people, to fulfil their dreams and aspirations, to ensure a prosperous life. We will all build a new Uzbekistan together,” he said.
In front of him dozens of teenagers wearing blue baseball caps and white t-shirts emblazoned with ‘Mirziyoyev’ waved and cheered.
This is Mr Mirziyoyev’s second term in office. He took over in 2016 from the reclusive and cankerous Islam Karimov. He has since opened up the economy, scrapped complicated dual currency rules and allowed foreign companies to invest and upgrade the country’s infrastructure.
Observers have generally applauded his efforts, although human rights and media activists have said that more needs to be done. Mr Mirziyoyev was PM under Karimov.
Under Uzbekistan’s constitution, the 64-year-old Mr Mirziyoyev is allowed to serve two consecutive terms as president, although this provision was ignored by Karimov.
After the vote on Oct. 24, Western election observers said that although democratic progress had been made, the election fell short of being genuinely competitive.
“The campaign was low-key in all regions as well as online. Although there were five candidates, the campaign was not truly competitive as there was no direct meaningful or genuine engagement between them, and with the citizens,” the OSCE’s vote monitoring unit ODHIR said.
It has never judged an election in Uzbekistan to be free or fair, unlike its CIS counterparts who approved the vote.
Mr Mirziyoyev’s 80% win was down from 2016 when he won with 90%.
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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
OCT. 23 2021 (The Bulletin) — Former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili had to have a blood transfusion in prison, the Russian Interfax news agency reported by quoting his personal doctor. Saakashvili returned to Georgia on Oct. 1, ending eight years of exile. He was immediately arrested for various abuses of power crimes for which he was sentenced in-absentia to six years in jail in 2018. Saakashvili has said that the convictions are politically motivated and he has been on a hunger strike.
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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021
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OCT. 22 2021 (The Bulletin) — In an interview with Kazakh media released through his foundation, former Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev described how he decided to retire after he needed to have an operation on his spine to stop a disease that was hindering his mobility. Mr Nazarbayev resigned without much warning in March 2019 after nearly 28 years as Kazakhstan’s first post-Soviet leader.
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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021
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JULY 19 2021 (The Bulletin) — Armenia’s opposition MPs, with the exception of former president Robert Kocharyan, said that they would take their seats in parliament, diverting a potential constitutional crisis. Opposition groups in Georgia declined to take their seats after an election last year which they said was fraudulent. Analysts had worried that the opposition in Armenia would do the same. Nikol Pashinyan won a majority in the election last month. Mr Kocharyan, whose party now holds 29 of 107 seats in parliament, said that his status as a former President precluded him from taking up an MPs position.
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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021
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BAKU/ALMATY/JULY 18 2021 (The Bulletin) –Officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have been using the Pegasus Israeli spyware to eavesdrop on opposition journalists and politicians, as well as senior members of the Kazakh elite including President Kassym Jomart Tokayev.
The Berlin-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said in its dossier, entitled “A World of Surveillance”, that Azerbaijan had targeted 1,000 people and Kazakhstan had targeted 2,000 people.
The accusations were based on information from a whistleblower at Israeli company NSO Group which manufactured Pegasus for clients across the world. Most of the targets in Azerbaijan were journalists and politicians, including investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilov, who works for OCCRP.
“Secretive government surveillance doesn’t only affect the target,” she said. “My sources, my family, and my friends have also been swept up in the state’s campaign against me.”
The OCCRP said that the Pegasus spyware could read messages, eavesdrop on phone calls and act as a microphone to record conversations.
Pegasus’ targets in Kazakhstan included journalists, as well as Pres. Tokayev, successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev, PM Askar Mamin and businessman Bulat Utemuratov.
“The dozens of numbers suggest that the entire Nazarbayev regime, practically from top to bottom, was being spied on — most likely by its own security services,” the OCCRP said. It is not clear when the surveillance was ordered or by whom.
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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021
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YEREVAN/JUNE 15 2021 (The Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank said that the economy had rebounded faster than expected from both losing a war against Azerbaijan and also from the coronavirus pandemic, giving PM Nikol Pashinyan a boost ahead of a tight election.
The Central Bank also raised interest rates by half a percentage point to 6.5%, its highest level since 2016, strengthening the Armenian dram against the US dollar.
“Gross demand is recovering faster than expected, mainly due to the rapid growth of global demand, increased remittances, the high growth rate of private consumption, while private investment activity remains weak,” the Central Bank said in its statement.
Armenians vote in a parliamentary election on June 20. Polls put Mr Pashinyan ahead of his main contender, former president Robert Kocharyan, but they have also suggested that he may not win a majority.
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— This story was published in issue 48 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021
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JUNE 15 2021 (The Bulletin) — A court in Shymkent, southern Kazakhstan, sentenced Nurzhan Mukhammedov, a political activist, to two years of “limited freedom” for his links to the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK). The DVK is linked to Mukhtar Ablyazov, the Paris-based opposition leader who has been accused of stealing billions from a Kazakh bank.
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— This story was published in issue 48 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021