Tag Archives: politics

Turkmen President is no dictator, says official

SEPT. 21-23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Even at a European human rights meeting, it seems, calling President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov a dictator is just not acceptable.

This was the irate response, at least, of a deputy minister of foreign affairs when he slapped down a Turkmen dissident at an OSCE arranged human rights meeting in Warsaw.

Responding to a series of criticisms raised during the meeting, deputy foreign minister Vepa Khadzhiyev listed President Berdymukahmedov’s achievements in bringing “cheaper and more objective information to our citizens.” He also dismissed criticism from human rights groups of a decision to remove thousands of satellite dishes from homes in Ashgabat in April. Human rights campaigners had said this was the behaviour of a dictator.

Opposing Mr Khadzhiyev was the former member of Turkmenistan’s parliament now living in exile in Norway Pirimguly Tangrikuliyev, who openly criticised Western countries for cosying up to Mr Berdymukhamedov.

“They court the dictator because they need access to Turkmenistan’s energy resources,” he said.

This irritated Mr Khadzhiyev who asked rights groups not to use the term “dictator” for Mr Berdymukhamedov.

“A dictator does not provide free electricity, gas and water to his population. Our country increases salaries yearly by 10% and provides free education and healthcare,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Biometric data enables Kyrgyz people to vote

SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Most Kyrgyz migrant workers will not be able vote in the parliamentary election because they have failed to submit biometric data to the authorities before the deadline. The Zamandash opposition party told RFE/RL that only around 10,000 out of 700,000 Kyrgyz living in Russia will vote in the Oct. 4 election.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Comment: This election is a poor advert for democracy in Kyrgyzstan

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fourteen parties will appear on the ballot for voters in Kyrgyzstan to elect from on Oct. 4, yet from social media to taxi chatter, the complaint is of a lack of genuine choice. The menu contains the familiar set of several dozen politicians, from several parties that sound all too similar.

What the complainers ask for may be too much, one might say. The uninspiring choice may actually be the only thing that contemporary democracy can offer. Politicians seek reelection, parties try to cater to as wide a spectrum of voters as possible, and none of them accept the risks involved in running on sharply defined and innovative policy platforms.

But wait. Even by the modest standards of latter-day democracy, Kyrgyzstan may be scoring too low.

That 75% of sitting deputies are seeking reelection may be normal, but it cannot be normal when an enormous number of them are on tickets of new parties, often very different from their original parties.

There is a tendency in Kyrgyz politics for the protagonists to swap parties regularly and for new parties to emerge, confusing the electorate and cementing the feeling that the election is more about personalities than policies and issues.

None of the parties has seriously criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. No party is anything close to pro-Western or critical of Kyrgyzstan’s over-reliance on Russia. All are happy about the Eurasian Economic Union.

All are anti-corruption, pro- government-efficiency, pro- national-unity and a list of other goods, with no detail on how to attain them.

In an election which, thus, seems to be all about personalities, all the main parties are parading decidedly mixed lists of candidates. Popular politicians next to infamous ex- officials; progressives next to conservatives; wealthy business owners next to underpaid teachers; law enforcement leaders next to those with criminal past; young candidates next to old.

Thus, the voters are facing a long ballot with little variety and more than a bit of confusion.

Lacking genuine choice, they are left to vote either for the President’s Social Democratic party, to keep things the same, or for a party linked to their clan or family.

These growing pains – if this is what they can be called – are not good signals for a more democratic Kyrgyzstan.

By Emil Dzhuraev, Lecturer in politics at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Comment: To monitor or not, that is the question

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -Has Europe’s democracy watchdog, the OSCE, shot itself in the foot by deciding not to monitor Azerbaijan’s up and coming parliamentary election?

Certainly it must have been irritating that the Azerbaijani authorities had told the OSCE that it can have barely half the number of monitors it had asked for on the ground. But that feels like scant justification for pulling out altogether.

Instead, this feels personal.

The Azerbaijani authorities have been in menacing mood, pressuring anybody in their way and this has included the OSCE. Earlier this year, the OSCE closed its office in Baku under pressure from the Azerbaijani authorities.

Now it feels that the OSCE has been able to exact some sort of payback by crying foul over monitor numbers, pulling its observation team from Azerbaijan’s Nov. 1 election altogether and drawing yet more international condemnation on Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.

But this is, surely, an opportunity missed.

Would it not have made more sense to monitor the election as best as possible with limited resources. That way the West can improve its understand of what is going on in Azerbaijan and maintain closer contact with ordinary Azerbaijanis.

There will be other Western vote monitoring teams at the election but without the size and experience of the OSCE team, the West is severely limited and this is a crying shame.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Tajikistan says ex-minister killed

SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s interior ministry said security forces had killed the fugitive former deputy defence minister Gen. Abduhalim Mirzo Nazarzoda after a manhunt spanning nearly a fortnight. The authorities in Tajikistan have accused Nazarzoda of masterminding two attacks on police stations in Dushanbe and a nearby town on Sept. 4 that killed two dozen people.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

HRW warns on rights in Tajikistan

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik government has presided over an “steady, unmistakable decline of freedom of expression”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement referring to the clampdown on the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Nazarbayev calls Kazakhstan land of Great Steppe

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev used the 550th anniversary celebrations of the Kazakh khanate to espouse on one of his favourite topics — nation building. At the celebrations, he called on the country to be known as the Land of the Great Steppe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Georgia passes prosecutor bill

SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Parliament passed by 69-12 the second reading of a bill that will see the prosecutor-general’s position shift to a 6-year post elected by a 15-person body. Currently, the PM appoints the prosecutor-general on the advice of the minister of justice. Detractors of the bill say it is over-complicating the appointment process.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kyrgyzstan accuses PM

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s First Deputy PM Tayirbek Sarpashev accused some political parties of hampering the Oct. 4 parliamentary election by trying to illegally collect voters’ biometric data. Mr Sarpashev did not name the parties.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Political row envelops Georgia’s city statue to lovers

TBILISI/Georgia, SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A row has erupted in the Georgian Black Sea town of Batumi over damage to a statue of the South Caucasus’ most famous lovers — Ali and Nino. The opposition UNM party, the political machine of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, has accused the ruling Georgian Dream coalition of deliberating damaging the statue it erected in 2010.

Batumi has become a political battleground since 2012, when the Georgian Dream won a parliamentary election. Mr Saakashvili had treated Batumi as a pet project, lavishing cash, ornate buildings and grand designs on the city.

Now, though, the UNM accuses the Georgian Dream of pulling down many of these projects to undermine Saakashvili’s legacy in the city.

In a Facebook post, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of Odessa in Ukraine, said that under the guise of moving the statue, the Georgian Dream had irreparably damaged it.

“Today, with the support of Russian oligarch Ivanishvili, the moving statue Ali and Nino was destroyed.” he said. The Georgian Dream has dismissed the allegations. The statues of Ali and Nino had been sited at the entrance to Batumi’s harbour, a prominent position in the city.

Ali and Nino was first published in 1937. It detailed a love affair between the Muslim Azeri Ali and Christian Georgian Nino, and is supposed to symbolise eternal love and understanding between nations.

The statue was designed by Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze.

Lincoln Mitchell, a Tbilisi-based political scientist, explained just why Batumi attracted so much attention from the Georgian Dream.

“The UNM government spearheaded a dramatic modernisation of Batumi, a city that 15 years ago was a sleepy coastal town led by a nasty warlord.” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)