Tag Archives: politics

Anaklia partners sue Georgian government

TBILISI/JULY 29 (The Bulletin) — The Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) and one of its key investors filed separate arbitration claims against the Georgia government for cancelling its deal to build the new Black Sea port.

ADC and Bob Meijer, the investor, said that they are claiming a combined $1b for lost earnings linked to the project.

The Georgian government tore up the contract with the ADC in January because it said that ADC had failed to secure sufficient financial backing to build the new port, supposed to become Georgia’s principal entry and exit for goods being transported to and from China and Europe.

ADC, though, said that the contract was ripped up for political reasons. One of the main backers of the ADC project was, Mamuka Khazaradze, the founder of TBC Bank. TBC Bank is one of Georgia’s biggest high street banks and is listed on the London Stock Exchange but last year Mr Khazaradze was arrested for corruption, allegations he has said are politically motivated.

ADC said that this row between Mr Khazaradze and the Georgian government tarnished the project.

“The Government deliberately acted to ensure that ADC could not succeed with project development. In this instance the Government abused its power because the ruling party and its leader decided the project’s success was contrary to their own political and economic interests,” ADC said in a statement.

The statement also said that the ADC was bringing its action through the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris and that Mr Meijer was pursuing his claim through the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Azerbaijani authorities arrest opposition leaders

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JULY 28 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Azerbaijan sent opposition leader Mammad Ibrahim to pretrial detention ahead of his trial for organising an illegal rally. Police detained Mr Ibrahim and around 30 other opposition activists linked to the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party at a protest on July 14/15 that called for intensified military action against Armenia around the disputed region Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposition groups have accused the government of using the protests and anti-coronavirus lockdowns to target opposition activists.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

The wisdom in punishing former presidents for corruption

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JUNE 23 (The Bulletin) — Former presidents in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have more in common with London buses than you would expect.

An old adage says that you wait for ages for a London bus and then two come along at once. To some extent, the same could be said of former presidents in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

In Bishkek, a judge marked a first by imprisoning former president Almazbek Atambayev for 11 years for corruption. He is the first former president in the region to be imprisoned but is likely to be followed quickly by two more. In Armenia, former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan are in and out of court and both appear destined for a spell in prison.

There have, of course, been other attempts to imprison former presidents in Central Asia, but they have failed. Just. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former president in Kyrgyzstan, was found guilty of corruption after a revolution in 2010 but had already fled to Belarus and Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s former president, has also been found guilty of corruption but is living and working in Ukraine.

The point is that unless they are very careful, incoming governments tempted to set prosecutors onto the trail of former presidents and their various associates, look like they are more interested in settling scores than governing.

Rightly, US and EU diplomats have lobbied for various governments not to go down this route. It undermines their credibility and damages both relations with foreign investors, who don’t like the aggressive headlines, and also ordinary people’s trust in politics.

Perhaps it would have been better in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia and Georgia to spend less energy on settling old scores and more on improving people’s lives? The drivers can be different — in Kyrgyzstan, Pres. Sooronbai Jeenbekov had to stop Atambayev dominating politics; in Armenia, PM Pashinyan felt that he needed to perpetuate the popular revolution of 2018 and punish former governments for shooting dead anti-government protests in 2008; in Georgia, the incoming Georgian Dream coalition government needed to prove that Saakashvili and his government were as corrupt and evil as they had claimed in an acrimonious pair of elections — but the results are the same.

And it perpetuates as the next incoming government will be tempted to right the wrongs that they have also been nursing.

When this cycle is broken, politics in the region will have truly grown up.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Atambayev sent to prison for 11 years

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BISHKEK/JUNE 23 (The Bulletin) — Almazbek Atambayev, Kyrgyzstan’s former president, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption, completing a heavy fall from grace for a man who had at one time been venerated as a modern Kyrgyz leader.

Atambayev is also the first former president in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region to be imprisoned, although former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan have both been arrested for corruption too.

The court said that Atambayev was guilty of corruption over the release of Chechen mafia boss, Aziz Batukayev from prison in 2013. Prosecutors said that the two men were allied. Batukayev was arrested and imprisoned in 2006 for 16 years for organising anti-government demonstrations. This was when Atambayev was in opposition. He was PM in 2010/11 and president from 2011-17.

Supporters of Atambayev accused the government of Sooronbai Jeenbekov of using the judiciary to pursue political vendettas. This has become a common refrain across the region after power transitions.

Atambayev has fallen out with Mr Jeenbekov, the man he picked to succeed him as president. It appeared that Atambayev, who was described as acerbic and aloof during his presidency, considered his successor to be his junior and he expected Mr Jeenbekov to defer to him. He wanted to run Kyrgyzstan, essentially, as a backseat driver. Mr Jeenbekov, though, had other ideas and prosecutors have steadily arrested and imprisoned Atambayev’s supporters.

Atambayev was arrested in August after a two-day stand-off with the security forces. He still faces trials for other offences, including inciting armed rebellion.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kazakh court imprisons activist for insulting ruling party

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JUNE 22 (The Bulletin) — A court in Almaty sentenced an opposition activist to “three years of limited freedom” for insulting the governing Nur Otan party. Alnur Ilyashev’s crime was to describe on various Facebook posts Nur Otan as a bunch of “crooks and thieves”. The judge declined to give him the prison sentence that government prosecutors had asked for but he will have to serve 300 hours of community service and is banned from political activity for five years.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenian MPs vote to allowing sacking of judges

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JUNE 22 (The Bulletin) — Armenia’s parliament voted to approve changes to the country’s constitution that will allow PM Nikol Pashinyan to fire judges he considers to be irritating, a move that his detractors have said is politically motivated. Armenia had been due to hold a referendum on the constitutional changes in April but a coronavirus lockdown forced its cancellation. Mr Pashinyan wants to fire three judges appointed to the Constitutional Court before a referendum in 2018 propelled him to power. >> See page 2 for comment

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Georgian MPs to vote on improving workers’ rights

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TBILISI/JUNE 21 (The Bulletin) — A draft bill set to be debated this week by MPs in Georgia gives the country the chance to set an example on how to improve workers’ rights across the region, activists said.

They said that if Georgia wanted to be taken seriously as an aspirant member of the European Union it had to improve safety and rights for workers.

In a statement, Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that a lack of oversight was putting thousands of workers at risk. “Parliament should do the right thing and adopt reforms urgently needed to stop abusive practices and improve workers’ health and safety,” she said.

Over the past few years, a few dozen people working on construction sites in Tbilisi have been killed. Dereguatation and a “profit first” approach to a construction boom triggered by an economic boom and a sharp rise in tourist numbers is putting lives at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its statement.

Across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region, deaths are reported on construction sites in most major cities. Labour unions are too weak to take on big business which is generally owned by powerful members of the elite who are linked closely with senior politicians.

In Georgia, HRW said that miners were working dangerous shifts lasting 12 hours for 15 days in a row and construction workers were having to cope with little or no safety protections.

“Years of deregulation have left Georgian workers without adequate protections,” HRW said.

Georgia is the most Western-looking of the states in former Soviet Central Asia and the South Caucasus. It sees its future as a member of the EU and of NATO.

Debating potential reform to the labour laws last year, Dmitri Tskhitishvil, chair of the Georgian Parliament’s labour code commission, referenced obligations under a Georgia-EU Association Agreement, signed in 2016.

“Much remains to be done,” he said. “There are still gross violations of workers’ rights and occupational hazards in different industries.”

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenian courts refuse to sanction arrest of opposition leader

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YEREVAN/JUNE 21 (The Bulletin) — In a blow to the authority of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, a court in the Armenian capital turned down a request from the Prosecutor-General’s office to arrest opposition leader Gagik Tsarukyan for alleged corruption.

Prosecutors charged Mr Tsarukyan, leader of the Prosperous Armenia party and a well-known businessman, last week. Within a couple of days of the charge, Parliament had stripped Mr Tsarukyan of his immunity from prosecution, setting up his arrest.

But judges in Armenia have resisted PM Nikol Pashinyan, the leader of a 2018 revolution that overthrew the Republican Party from power. Many judges, appointed during the Republican Party’s period in office, have said that he has overstepped his authority.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz MPs debate increased punishments for domestic abuse

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JUNE 19 (The Bulletin) — MPs in Kyrgyzstan debated increasing fines for domestic abuse after a video went viral of a woman standing with her hands tied behind her back as her husband poured cold water over her head and slapped her. Activists have said that Kyrgyzstan, a notoriously macho society, is too soft on domestic abuse. Reports said that police have arrested the man in the video.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenian government declines gas price rise for consumers

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YEREVAN/JUNE 19 (The Bulletin) — Consumers in Armenia will not pay any more for their gas despite a push by Russia’s Gazprom, the gas supplier, to increase prices after the Armenian Public Services Regulatory Commission ordered a price freeze.

The ruling is a victory for Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan who has styled himself as the champion of the people since he was propelled to power in a revolution in 2018.

In 2015, street protests against rises to electricity tariffs forced the government into an embarrassing u-turn and Mr Pashinyan was desperate not to stoke frustration now, especially with anger at the government’s handling of the coronavirus growing and the prospect of the economy tipping into a recession.

Quoting the Public Services Regulatory Commission, media in Armenia said that consumers would continue to pay a subsidised 139 Armenian drams per cubic metre of gas and vulnerable groups will pay 100 drams per cubic metre if their consumption does not exceed 600 cubic metres per year.

Instead, businesses that consume more than 10,000 cubic metres of gas per year and greenhouses will pay more for their gas, meeting some of the price rises that the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom had been asking for.

Earlier this month, Mr Pashinyan had proposed that the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union unify gas tariffs across the region.

This was rejected by the Kremlin, though, which said it needed more price flexibility to react to global market moves.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020