Tag Archives: politics

Editorial: Tajik students

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imitation is, they say, the most sincere form of flattery. So is flattery what Tajik officials had in mind when they organised a series of student protests against diplomatic missions of the European Union, the OSCE and Turkey in Dushanbe and Khujand? Or perhaps they were just thinking about the intimidation they wanted to inflict on diplomats?

They deny any link to the student protests, but in Tajikistan people are controlled and a protest outside a foreign embassy couldn’t have happened without the support of the authorities.

Ten years ago, the Russian state spawned a youth movement called Nashi. It was well-funded, well-organised and vicious. When it was given a target it went into attack mode. Just ask ambassadors from Western countries they targeted or the democracy advocates they harassed.

It appears as if Tajik officials now want to achieve something similar, although on a smaller scale. They want to intimidate Turkey and the European Union into giving up opposition members who have fled Tajikistan. Nashi’s own results were, in the end, mixed and the Tajik students’ won’t be any better.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Turkmen President pardons prisoners

FEB. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov pardoned nearly 1,500 prisoners to mark National Flag Day, media reported. The gesture is fairly well-used by Mr Berdymukhamedov who likes to portray himself as a powerful, benign father-figure. Rights groups, though, accuse him of presiding over a regime as repressive as his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Armenia’s ruling party signs coalition

FEB. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ruling Republican Party signed a coalition deal with the staunchly anti-Turkey Armenian Revolutionary Federation, also known as Dashnaktsutyun, underlining the Armenian government’s strengthened resistance to improved ties with its neighbour. Under the deal, Dashnaktsutyun, which holds five seats in Armenia’s 131-seat parliament, will have three ministers in government — economy, education and local administration. The Republican Party, the party of President Serzh Sarksyan, holds 70 seats in parliament. There had been some movement in 2012 and 2013 towards reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey.

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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Dozens protest for jailed Kazakh PM

FEB. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around a dozen protesters in Astana demanded the release from prison of Kazakhstan’s former PM Serik Akhmetov, who is serving a 10-year sentence for corruption. Protests in Kazakhstan, especially supporting former high-ranking officials who have been imprisoned for corruption, are rare.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia drops religion bill

FEB. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament unexpectedly dropped a bill that would have made insulting religion a crime. The bill’s sponsor, an MP for the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, withdrew the bill after it ran into a barrage of controversy for effectively clamping down on free speech. The suspicion was that Georgian Dream was using the bill to try and shore up support amongst supporters of Georgia’s Orthodox Church ahead of a parliamentary election later this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Turkmen President wants constitutional changes

FEB. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that he wants the country’s constitution altered to scrap both the upper age limit for presidents and the number of terms they can serve. He made the recommendations through a commission. Parliament officially has to approve the changes before they can be passed into law. The changes would cement Mr Berdmukhamedov’s grip on power.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgian tax changes to knock $400m off government budget

FEB. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s finance minister, Nodar Khaduri, said 400m lari ($160m) will be cut from the 2016 budget if parliament agrees to a new corporation tax that the government has said will stimulate economic growth.

The Georgian Dream coalition has staked a large amount of political capital on its proposed reforms which will only tax profit that is not re- invested. Government officials have said the idea is to try to encourage more economic activity. All profit is currently taxed.

“These reforms, both income tax and VAT, will reduce this year’s targeted revenues by about 400m lari,” Mr Khaduri, told media.

The government is also tinkering with VAT so that the import of so- called fix assets is VAT free.

$400m represents roughly 5% of the government’s expected total revenue for 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Turkmen President sacks deputy PM

FEB. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked deputy PM Palvan Taganov for “weakening discipline and order”. The official explanation is code for corruption allegations. Mr Taganov had served in his post for two years and also headed the official commodity exchange. According to unconfirmed reports, Mr Taganov has been arrested.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Kazakh president orders spending spree

FEB. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his government to spend more than 360b tenge ($1b) building houses and supporting small and medium-sized businesses, a policy he hopes will both stimulate Kazakhstan’s flatlining economy and cement support for his Nur Otan party ahead of parliamentary elections next month.

His plan also involves trying to protect both Kazakhstan’s $4b national pension pot by diversifying investments into other currencies and second tier banks by buying up their bonds, a form of financial aid.

With more data showing that low oil prices and a devalued currency have dragged down Kazakhstan’s economy, Mr Nazarbayev appears to have decided that now is the moment to be bold.

“Many countries have found themselves in a difficult situation and are forced to cut social spending, suspend projects, resulting in rising unemployment. Yet we continue building industrial facilities and open new markets,” he told a government meeting. “At the centre of all my orders are the needs of the common man, his well-being and stability.”

Three government financial insti- tutions — the Baiterek Holding company, the House Building Bank of Kazakhstan and the Samruk Kazyna sovereign wealth fund — will admin- ister funds for the house building spending spree, official media reported. The $1b will come from pushing cash earmarked for a social spending in 2017 forward by a year.

Mr Nazarbayev likes to act the father figure, looking after the Kazakh people during times of hardship. This showed through with his emphasis on looking after the common man. He said that his spending plans would create 18,000 jobs, build 42 new schools and extend and improve the electric grid system.

“Full and effective utilisation of funds allocated for the implementation of these measures will stimulate economic activity, support employment and add 1% into economic growth in 2016,” he said.

If Mr Nazarbayev needed a reminder of the battle he faces to turn around the economy, it came from the Central Bank. It said the country’s deficit measured $5.3b in 2015, a result of the currency depreciation. The tenge halved in value in 2015.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Kazakh President tells people not to panic

JAN 29 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — At a televised conference for his Nur Otan political party, a stony faced Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev played down a 50% drop in the value of the tenge currency and told viewers to look at the economic positives.

Mr Nazarbayev likes to act the elder father figure during times of economic and political strife in Kazakhstan and with oil prices at a 12- year-low, government spending being cut and inflation rising, Mr Nazarbayev clearly thought it was time to calm the increasingly jittering nerves of his countrymen.

“We have been living with $30 per barrel oil for half a year now and nothing has happened. We will overcome (this) and maybe we should get used to this, I think it has come here to stay,” he told the 2,000 assembled delegates.

Kazakh officials know that they are treading a thin line and are eager to head off any sign of discontent.

In Azerbaijan, unease at the economic malaise triggered several clashes between protesters and police in regional towns last month but in Kazakhstan, the authorities have been able to dampen public frustration.

Judging the public mood — when to be firm and when to be conciliatory — is a key skill during this time of economic hardship and one that Mr Nazarbayev has previously shown that he is adept at.

Last month, Mr Nazarbayev called a parliamentary election for March, 18 months early. Analysts said that this had been arranged so that Mr Nazarbayev and his officials could hold an election now, before the economic situation worsened further.

At the Nur Otan conference, though, Mr Nazarbayev avoided mention of the election and instead told Kazakhs that the government was working hard to look after them.

“We support our working population through implementation of the Employment Roadmap-2020 Program. There is no place for unemployment in Kazakhstan. We have all resources in place to avoid it,” he said.

Official unemployment figures in Kazakhstan are considered unreliable. Correspondents in Kazakhstan, though, and reports from various regional towns suggest that people are losing their jobs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)