SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A minor partner in the Georgian election coalition headed by Opera singer Paata Burchuladze, the State For The People, quit after a row over corruption allegations. Mr Burchuladze is a wildcard in the Oct. 8 election. He has no previous political experience but has been attracting a fair amount of goodwill from voters.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US-based Human Rights Watch said that police in Tajikistan had detained around 50 family members of activists who staged a protest at a OSCE meeting this week. Around 20 activists from Tajikistan living in exile in Europe staged a silent protest against the government during an OSCE conference on human rights in Warsaw. Protesters wore T-shirts showing photos of jailed journalists and opposition members.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Edil Baisalov, who previously served as chief of staff to ex-Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva, said the country’s security services are targeting him and some of his former colleagues and could soon arrest him on trumped up charges. Mr Baisalov’s accusations fit with the worsening political tension between President Almazbek Atambayev and his predecessor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)f
BISHKEK, SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev cancelled a trip to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York because he was feeling unwell and was suffering from chest pains.
Instead, Mr Atambayev diverted his plane to Istanbul where he checked into a hotel and was examined by doctors. Only four hours later Mr Atambayev flew down to Izmir on the Mediterranean coast for a break and to convalesce. He would, his press team said, be back at work by next month.
On Friday, he was reported to have flown to Moscow for more treatment.
In Bishkek, speculation swirled across kitchen tables, bars and shops over the state of the President’s health, his no-show at the UN General Assembly and his unscheduled stopover in Izmir and Istanbul.
Rita Karasartova, an opposition activist, said “While Atambayev is in Turkey, there could be arrests (of opposition activists) here. After the arrests, Atambayev could say he did not know anything about it because he was out of country.”
Other, pro-Atambayev analysts, disagreed.
Mr Atambayev has cut a divisive figure. He has proposed constitutional amendments to hand the PM more power and quarrelled with his predecessor Roza Otunbayeva.
And his health has been the focus of speculation previously. Two years ago he took to walking with a stick. His press team said that he had a knee condition but they couldn’t stop the image of a frail-looking president.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Acting Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev fired the governor of Jizzakh, his native province in the east of the country, for ‘serious shortcomings’. The phrase is a hollow formula that former President Islam Karimov used often when firing an official. Abdukahkhar Tukhtayev will now replace Asror Kobilov, who had been in charge since 2009, as the Jizzakh governor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Venice Commission, a panel of constitutional experts working under the Council of Europe, criticised the upcoming referendum in Azerbaijan, which calls for an extension of presidential terms from five to seven years and other laws which it said would consolidate power in the hands of President Ilham Aliyev.
In a statement, the Venice Commission said that the proposed legal amendments will effectively allow Mr Aliyev to rule indefinitely.
“Many proposed amendments would severely upset the balance of power by giving unprecedented powers to the president,” the lawyers of the Venice Commission said in a statement.
Azerbaijani officials said that the Commission was out of line in judging the proposed amendments which will be voted on in a referendum on Sept. 26.
“The referendum doesn’t expand presidential powers, this is about improving governance,” Shahin Aliyev, head the Presidential Administration’s law unit, told local media.
Mr Aliyev has already tinkered with Azerbaijan’s constitution when he scrapped a limit on presidential terms in 2009.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Dariga Nazarbayeva, the recently- appointed Senator and eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, dismissed rumours regarding her role in a potential succession to her father. At a press conference in Astana, she said she was a proud servant of the country and a member of the presidential team, and that she holds no further ambition. Analysts believe she could be being lined up as a successor.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
TBILISI, SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Next month’s parliamentary election in Georgia marks a new epoch for the United National Movement party (UNM). This is the first national election that it is fighting without its founder, former leader and most recognisable talisman — former Georgian President Mikheil Saakhashvili.
But this may not be a bad thing. Mr Saakashvili is a polarising figure and the mere mention of his name can make Georgians recoil. He lead a peaceful revolution in 2003 that saw the former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze thrown from power as Georgia’s president. Mr Saakashvili was then president from 2004 until 2013. By that time, though, his reputation, and that of the UNM, had come full circle.
Mr Saakashvili had rebranded Georgia with a new flag, a new army ready to fight alongside NATO and a western oriented foreign policy. But he had also picked fights with Russia, and allegedly allowed abuses and beatings in Georgia’s prisons.
From a seemingly omnipotent position, the UNM had first lost a parliamentary election to the upstart Georgian Dream coalition in 2012 and then the presidential election in 2013. Mr Saakashvili has been forced into exile and is now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine.
But many voters in Tbilisi, think that he is still influencing the UNM.
Levani, a 27-year-old Tbilisi resident described the UNM as a “disgrace” which kept people under “police control and repression”.
“These days Saakashvili still has enormous influence on the UNM,” she said. “He manages to form the list of candidates for ballots, guide the activists for their provocations and generate low level international pressure to hit the image of the current government and undermine the elections.” Teona, a 25-year-old, agreed.
“They are still associated with Saakashvili and nobody has any question mark about that,” he said. “There are many new people in the UNM whom I might sympathise with but for me still they are affiliated with former regime and I don’t trust them.”
For Giorgi Kandelaki, a UNM MP, these are difficult times. He said that the decision-making progress within the party is now removed from Mr Saakashvili and that he was not trying to influence events from Odessa.
“Mr Saakashvili now is not giving any line to the party to follow. He can give advice and the party takes it on board or not,” he told The Conway Bulletin in an interview.
He did hint though that while Mr Saakashvili’s legacy was positive for the UNM’s core voters, different tactics were needed to attract new voters.
“For the voting base of the UNM, the figure of Saakashvili and his legacy is very positive. As far as concerns undecided voters, we are reaching out to this segment by bringing a lot of new faces into UNM”, he said.
The election is set for Oct. 9. The few opinion polls which have been published put the UNM and the ruling Georgian Dream coalition on level pegging.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – >> Economic stagnation, an unpopular president, a new PM and demonstrations over the summer in favour of a group of gunmen who captured a police station. Is Armenian in something of a crises?
>> You could certainly say that. It’s been a torrid 12 months for President Serzh Sargsyan, starting with demonstrations in the summer of 2015 against proposed electricity price rises. The government said that it had to introduce price rises to counter a fall in the value of the Armenian dram and a general economic downturn. Ordinary people, though, clearly weren’t prepared to stomach the price rise. They took to the streets and faced down the police, forcing the Armenian government to drop its price increase. The incident damaged Sargsyan and the then PM Hovik Abrahamian.
Since then, though, things have gotten worse. The economic just hasn’t picked up. There’s been something of a dead cat bounce in Armenia. It just hasn’t lifted and people are getting frustrated. This and the botched handling of the siege and hostage scenario at a police station in the capital in July contributed to Abrahamian having to quit as PM. He had only been in the job for two years.
Don’t forget, too, fighting in the Armenia-controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh in April when Azerbaijan rolled in its tanks. The outbreak of fighting appeared to take the Armenia’s leadership by surprise, again embarrassing Sargsyan.
>> And how has this impacted Sargsyan?
>> His authority has definitely been affected. Sargsyan has never been wildly popular among ordinary Armenians. He’s won a couple of elections but both have been disputed and turnouts have been modest. In 2008, when he won his first presidential election, police shot dead at least 15 protesters after anti-Sargsyan protesters had taken over the main squares in Yerevan for a couple of weeks. Part of Sargsyan’s problem is an image problem. He comes across as cold and aloof. His power base is also centred on Nagorno-Karabakh, where he is from, and people suspect that he favours this clique. He’s certainly enriched his family and friends as president. The recent turmoil, and especially the stagnant economy, will only undermine his standing further.
>> Does this mean that Armenia’s opposition have a chance of taking over?
>> It’ll be very difficult for them. Sargsyan has the power of the Republican Party behind him. This is a formidable election machine as was shown in regional election when despite all the problems it still won just over half the local elections held on Sept. 18. Still, there was a wobble. The Republican Party lost 30 of these local elections, considered a blow to its prestige and clout.
>> And the new PM, Karen Karapetyan, how does he feed into all this?
>> Karapetyan is seasoned operator. He used to be the mayor of Yerevan, one of the most high profile jobs in the country, and was also an executive at the local branch of Gazprom. This means that he is already well- known to Russian officials, very important to Armenia which relies on Russia as one of its few allies.
His brother is Samvel who is one of the richest Armenians. He owns a property empire in Moscow and last year rode to the rescue of the Armenian government by buying the national electricity distribution company after the government backed down from angry protesters who didn’t want to pay a price rise.
The appointment of Karapetyan, puts his family at the centre of Armenian politics. This is the power duo to watch in Armenia. Sargsyan, who is eligible to run in a presidential election set for 2018, is increasingly reliant on the Karapetyans.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan appointed a handful of new ministers, purging the previous government of Hovik Abrahamyan. Notably, Vardan Aramyan will be the new finance minister, Vahan Martirosyan was appointed transport and communications minister, while Ashot Manukyan will serve as energy minister. Mr Abrahamyan resigned earlier this month after a fall in the government’s popularity. He said a new government was needed.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)