Tag Archives: politics

Nur Otan drops Dariga Nazarbayeva as MP

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – ALMATY — The results of the parliamentary elections may have been expected but there was a surprise lined up. A few days days after the vote the Nur Otan party dropped Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, from its list of MPs (March 24).

The Conway Bulletin’s Central Asia newswire service (the Silk Road Intelligencer) broke the news on Thursday that Ms Nazarbayeva’s had been dropped by Nur Otan as an MP.

MP in 2012-14 and also held the post of deputy PM since last September, was in line to return to the lower house of Parliament and be nominated as speaker.

This would have granted her a powerful and respected position and also signalled that she was being lined up as a potential successor for her 75-year-old father as Kazakhstan’s second post-Soviet president.

There has been no explanation to the apparent change of plan but it set off various theories on the Kazakh presidential succession issue.

And last week, too, Ms Nazarbayeva’s son, 31-year-old Nurali Aliyev, quit as deputy mayor of Astana apparently to pursue business interests.

This effectively means that in one week, two key members of the president’s family have taken a step back from influential political positions.

One theory previously been put forward for Kazakhstan’s succession issue was that Ms Nazarbayeva would take over in the short term as president before making way for her son. That now appears off the agenda.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Editorial: Kazakh Pres. daughter’s moves

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Observers expected one major outcome from Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election. Dariga Nazarbayeva’s nomination as an MP and her ascendency to be parliament’s Speaker, an important constitutional role and a stepping stone to higher office. But it didn’t come through.

Has she fallen out with her father, the 75-year-old Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev? Her son, Nurali Aliyev, resigned as deputy mayor of Astana earlier this month. Coincidences are rare in Kazakh politics.

Is she adopting a more low-key approach? This could be one way of dodging future tough austerity policies that the government will inevitably adopt to survive a worsening economic crisis.

Whatever the greater game plan is, one thing is for sure. Kazakhstan’s succession issue will once again dominate Kazakh politics.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Nur Otan wins Kazakh election with 82%

MARCH 20/21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – ALMATY — Kazakhstan’s ruling Nur Otan party won a parliamentary election with 82% of the vote, although Western monitors said that the vote was not fair.

The result is a near mirror image of a parliamentary election in 2012. Nur Otan scored 81% of the vote four years ago and the quasi-opposition parties Ak Zhol and the People’s Communist Party, which are both pro-President Nazarbayev, polled 7% in 2012 and 2016.

European vote monitors said that the election was broadly unfair although, importantly there had been some progress on previous elections.

Marietta Tidei, the head of the OSCE’s monitoring mission for the Kazakh election, said that Kazakhstan still had some way to go to meet what Europe would consider to be a free and democratic election.

“The ruling party had a clear advantage over others in these elections and, while the parties were generally able to campaign freely, genuine political choice remains insufficient,” she said.

Europe’s main vote monitoring watchdog, the OSCE’s ODHIR, has never judged an election in Kazakhstan to be free and fair.

For the Kazakh authorities, though, the election was important as it imposes more stability on the country just as the economy appears to worsen.

Still, a Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said it was difficult finding people who voted for Nur Otan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s party. Turn out in Almaty was only 34%, the lowest in the country.

Nurbek didn’t vote. His comments on why he didn’t think it was worth voting in the election were broadly representative.

“I don’t think there is any point in voting because my vote is not really going to change anything,” he said.

“Elections are just a play to pretend we have some sort of democracy which we obviously don’t.”

Still, somedid vote and they chose Nur Otan.

“We voted for Nur Otan. There were many parties but with Nur Otan our future is certain,” said a couple who declined to be named as they strolled through Almaty.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh ministries ban smart phones

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Government ministries in Kazakhstan have banned smart phones from buildings to try and stop official documents being leaked. The ban, apparently, was to try and stop officials from photographing documents with their smart phone and then sending them on to people using WhatsApp. Kazakhstan has launched a number of drives over the past few years to try and professionalise its civil service.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Sex blackmail scandal rocks Georgia

MARCH 11/14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Georgian government officials and opposition MPs appear to have been the target of a blackmail plot after a series of sex tapes were posted online.

Videos of two Georgian women MPs and two men from the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, apparently having extramarital sex, were uploaded to Youtube.

The videos were taken down quickly but not before news of their existence had gone viral. Georgia’s conservative society was both outraged by the videos of the officials having sex and also at the breach of privacy.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said the security agencies had detained five people in connection with the plot.

“All the law enforcement agencies are involved in the investigation, we need to put an end to terrorising the society with such videos once and for all,” he said.

News reports said the originators of the videos contacted their targets before uploading the videos, demanding that they resign from their posts.

For Georgians the emergence of the videos is a reminder of the old- school Soviet- style pressure techniques which they thought they had left behind.

It’s unclear if the blackmail plot is linked to a parliamentary election planned for later this year.

Privacy, surveillance, and blackmail are all hot issues with the upcoming elections next October. The current government campaigned strongly against surveillance of citizens and politicians before they came to power in 2012.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Georgian students protest

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of students at Tbilisi State University staged a sit-in to protest at what they said was the non transparent way the university decides on its management structure. The protest attracted nationwide attention, and even forced the intervention of PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili. Some analysts said that the protest could spread.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Atambayev sacks head of Kyrgyz- Russian Development Fund

MARCH 14 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev fired Nursulu Akhmetova, one of the most prominent women in Kyrgyz finance, as head of the Kyrgyz-Russian Development Fund barely a year after she took the job.

The $500m Kyrgyz-Russian Development Fund was set up last February to smooth Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Eurasian Economic Union.

It was supposed to hand out grants and cheap loans to businesses to help them make the transition. Instead, in the seven months since Kyrgyzstan became a Eurasian Economic Union member, the Kyrgyz- Russian Fund has become a source for frustration for Kyrgyz businesses.

News reports quoted Mr Atambayev saying at her sacking: “I’ve spoken about this a few times with the Prime Minister. The Fund has not developed well, and the Government did not make it to work well.”

Kyrgyz businesses have accused the fund of changing the rules and making cash available only to large companies rather than small businesses.

Under Ms Akhmetova, the Fund had insisted that to qualify for loans or grants, businesses had to take out a minimum loan of $3m, contributing 20% itself.

For Mr Atambayev, the sacking is a personal disappointment. Before getting the job, on a three year contract, Ms Akhmetova had been head of the analytical department of the Presidential Administration. She was also its deputy director. Mr Atambayev would have worked with Ms Akhemetova personally.

Her replacement was named as Kubanychbek Kulmatov, a former mayor of Bishkek.

Analyst Emil Juraev said that the Fund still had a role to play if it can regain credibility under new leadership.

“The Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund, if used well, can certainly have a significant positive effect on economic development of Kyrgyzstan,” he said. “However, so far there have been many reasons for concern about the ability of Kyrgyzstan to effectively and freely manage the funds.”

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakh President’s grandson quits as Astana deputy mayor

MARCH 16 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurali Aliyev, grandson of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, quit his position as deputy mayor of Astana to pursue his business goals, a move that draws him away from the succession debate.

His decision came just days before a parliamentary election, in which his mother, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter Dariga, was standing for re-election.

“I’m looking to work in business development in a financial niche,” media quoted 31-year-old Mr Aliyev as saying. “For many years, before working in the akimat, I was engaged in business.”

Mr Aliyev is the son of Dariga Nazarbayeva and the late Rakhat Aliyev, who was found dead in a Vienna prison in February 2015. He had been charged with the murder of two bankers at Kazakhstan’s Nurbank in 2006.

Prior to being appointed as deputy mayor of Astana in 2014, Mr Aliyev had worked in Kazakhstan’s banking, telecoms and transport sectors.

But it was his shock appointment in December 2014 to one of the Kazakh capital’s most important positions, that threw him into the public limelight and set off rumours that he was being groomed for the top job.

His grandfather, Pres. Nazarbayev, is 75 years old and has said that he is nearing retirement. What he hasn’t done is set out a clear succession schedule.

One of the theories put forward after Mr Aliyev’s appointment as deputy mayor of Astana was that his mother would take over the top job in four or five years time and, effectively, keep the seat warm for her son to take over when he was old enough. The Kazakh constitution states that the minimum age for a president is 40.

Other than citing a preference to resume a business career, Mr Aliyev didn’t say why he was quitting as deputy mayor of Astana.

What his resignation definitely has done, though, is set off renewed Kazakh presidential succession speculation.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Azerbaijan’s President releases political prisoners to appease Europe

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a move that caught observers by surprise, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev released 148 prisoners, including a dozen or so political prisoners.

Observers, though, said that Mr Aliyev may have been feeling the heat from a sharp drop in the economy and growing unease among Azerbaijanis over accelerating inflation and a 50% cut in the value of the manat currency. They said that he may have wanted to extend a peace offering to the European Union, a vital trade partner, with which he has quarrelled over human rights.

Among those released were human rights campaigners Taleh Khasmamadov, Hilal Mammadov and Rasul Jafarov, opposition activist Nemat Panahli, exelection watchdog chief Anar Mammadli and journalist Parviz Hasimov.

They had all been arrested and jailed in the past three years for holding illegal weapons, drugs dealing or financial crimes.

Their supporters say that these charges have simply been trumped up to crackdown on dissenters in politics and the media.

Khadija Isamayilova, a journalist who focused on corruption and was jailed last year in a case that attracted worldwide media attention, was not pardoned.

On the same day that the prisoners were released, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Novruz Mammadov, was briefing Azerbaijani media about improved relations with the European Union.

He said that a new document bringing together the EU and Azerbaijan was likely to be signed soon.

“I have no doubt about that, because, recently, the EU commissioners for foreign affairs and energy issues visited Azerbaijan and expressed their position on the essence of the relations,” the Trend news agency quoted him as saying.

One of the more significant visits by EU officials over the last few months was Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign affairs commissioner. She talked up relations between Azerbaijan and the EU.

The European Union is so important to Azerbaijan because it is on the brink of becoming its biggest market for gas from the next phase of its Caspian Sea development.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakh election looms

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhs prepared to vote in a parliamentary election on Sunday, brought forward by a year after parliament said it had achieved its remit early. The election is expected to be a straightforward affair with the ruling Nur Otan party, which won 82% of the vote at the last election in 2012, winning easily again.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)