JULY 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Dream, a political coalition set up in 2012 by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, completed its clean sweep of the country’s major political offices by winning a run-off in the Tbilisi mayoral election. Davit Narmania, the Georgian Dream candidate, won with nearly 75% of the vote.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev to life in prison for ordering soldiers to fire at street demonstrations in 2010. The sentence is largely symbolic as Bakiyev fled Kyrgyzstan in 2010 and now lives in Minsk.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – There was a very strong sense of déjà vu around an official Turkmen government announcement this month. Media reported that the Turkmen government had announced that it would build a statue to the current president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.
When he took over the presidency in 2007 from Saparmurat Niyazov, the first president of post-Soviet Turkmenistan, one of his first stated actions with to dismantle the personality cult his predecessor had built up. This included a gold statue of Niyazov built on an enormous plinth in the centre of Ashgabat.
International observers also cheered when he started to open Turkmenistan up to foreign investment. It is now one of the region’s major gas producers, a position it should strengthen further over the next few years.
There have, though, been increasingly strong signals that Mr Berdymukhamedov also wants to build up a personality cult of his own and that worried observers.
He has been shown on state television berating hapless officials, he makes sure that he wins Turkmenistan’s most important horse race each year and now, it appears, he has authorised a statue of himself.
Foreign minister Kasymkuly Babayev was shown on state television giving a tour of the construction site to Mr Berdymukahmedov. He addressed Mr Berdymukhamedov by his preferred moniker of Arkadag, or Protector.
“In the name of the people of the country, of the leaders of (state) structures, (we) appeal to the head of state to decide to establish on one of the beautiful corners of Turkmenistan’s capital, a monument to President Arkadag,” media quoted him as saying. This all sounds very familiar.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in Georgia charged former president Mikheil Saakashvili with illegally breaking up an anti-government demonstration in 2007, taking over a television station and expropriating a businessman’s assets.
Mr Saakashvili, who has previously declined to appear in front of a court to face the charges, described them as politically motivated.
Georgian politics is sharply polarised and since the Georgian Dream coalition, led by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in the parliamentary elections in 2012 and the presidential vote in 2013 it has chased and charged Mr Saakashvili’s former associates with various crimes.
Both the EU and the US have criticised the Georgian Dream for persecuting former high-ranking officials but, despite Georgia’s continued pro-Western agenda, they have been unable to stop the charges.
Mr Saakashvili left Georgia last year, after the presidential election, to avoid facing charges which he said would be fabricated and levied against him.
The United States considered Mr Saakashvili a key ally and charges levied against him will irritate them.
“Commitment to the rule of law means both that everyone must comply with the law in a democratic society and that the legal system should not be used as a tool of political retribution,” the US State Department said in a statement.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A new report released by the Kyrgyz government’s main think tank, the National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), said that joining the Customs Union (CU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) may trigger short term economic and social discomfort.
The report is the first serious analysis of the costs and benefits of membership carried out by the government itself. It will make for troubling reading for President Almazbek Atambayev who is still trying to sell the idea of membership of the CU/EaEU to the general public.
Membership of the CU will probably trigger inflation which may lead to political unrest and possibly even a rise in Islamic radicalism, the report said. The Macroeconomic situation may subsequently improve, the report added, without making predictions as to how long that might take.
The report also stressed several benefits of the CU, including duty-free oil imports from Russia — a benefit Kyrgyzstan already enjoys — and security via the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Kyrgyzstan is already a member.
On Kyrgyzstan’s frail democracy, the report was also incisive. Parliamentarianism would be better developed outside the EaEU than inside it, while norms of governance and nationalist sentiment in Russia could hamper Kyrgyzstan’s political development, the report said.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Concerned about possible unrest connected with electricity price increases, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan has ordered his policy chiefs to investigate whether it can soften the price rises for less well-off families, media reported.
Last month Armenia announced that it would increase the price for electricity by 10% form Aug. 1, its first price increase in two years.
Opposition politicians have said that the price increase will trigger inflation across the country and that this is just the first of several price planned price rises.
Armenia’s government has already had to negotiate through a difficult year.
A government resigned because of public unhappiness over its pension reform plans, economic growth estimates have been downgraded because of sanctions on Russia and now an electricity price increase threatens to erode the government’s popularity further.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man and leader of the coalition that defeated former president Mikheil Saakashvili in three consecutive elections, will host a talk show, media reported. This is important as it gives Mr Bidzina, who is a former Georgian PM, a direct voice to ordinary Georgians.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police arrested the former mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, for money laundering. Supporters of Mr Ugulava denounced the allegations as politically motivated and part of a plot to blacken the reputation of senior officials linked to the administration of former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eduard Shevardnadze, a foreign minister of the Soviet Union and president of independence Georgia, died in a Tbilisi aged 86.
Tributes poured in from around the world for one of Georgia’s most recognisable modern-day politicians.
Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili described Shevardnadze as “one of the most distinguished politicians of the 20th century.”
His friend and political ally, the former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said: “He was an important contribution to the foreign policy of perestroika and was an ardent supporter of new thinking in world affairs.”
From Washington, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State said: “(Shevardnadze) played an instrumental role with President Gorbachev, President Reagan, and Secretary Shultz in bringing the Cold War to an end.”
But Shevardnadze leaves behind a mixed legacy.
As Mr Gorbaechev’s surprise choice as foreign minister for the Soviet Union in 1985, Shevardnadze was instrumental in rolling back Communism. He helped pull the Soviet military out of Eastern Europe and Afghanistan; gave a taciturn nod to the reunification of Germany.
Shevardnadze quit in 1990 because he feared a reactionary response but was persuaded back at the end of 1991, becoming the last foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
As president of independent Georgia, though, Shevardnadze’s reputation is far more ambiguous. He governed from 1993 until a revolution in 2003 toppled him. That revolution, later dubbed the Rose Revolution, ushered Mikheil Saakashvili into power and his staunchly pro-Western agenda.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
TBILISI/Georgia, JULY 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — From Basquiat to Banksy, politically charged street art has been a fixture of western cities for decades. Now, though, the walls and underpasses of Georgian capital Tbilisi are becoming an open-air gallery for a similar sort of subversive expression.
“It started after the war,” 34-year-old Natia, who runs workshops for aspiring street artists, said referring to the 2008 war with Russia. “One of our friends started using a stencil of Putin’s face, and people just got more creative.”
Today, that protest focuses on two of the most important issues for Georgia’s increasingly vocal liberal youth — gay rights and the decriminalization of marijuana. Graphic artist Musya Qeburia, 23, witnessed a police raid in June on her friend’s party. The police detained several guests for urine tests.
“They just came and took them for no reason, I was angry,” she said. In response, she erected what has become Tbilisi’s most celebrated piece, a line of figures, including Yoda, Super Mario and Brussels statue the Manneken Piss queuing to offer urine samples to a pair of Georgian police officers, one of whom looks like Chuck Norris (see photo on page 1).
The piece went viral on social networks, and according to Musya it has had a big impact.
But the reaction is not always positive. Rusa, 29, with three friends repainted a prominent central Tbilisi staircase in the colours of the rainbow flag, the symbol of gay rights.
“It was a silent, anonymous protest, silent because of the violence last year,” said Rusa, referring to an anti-gay riot in Tbilisi in 2013. “There were pictures of the staircase, people noticed. Then two days later city hall came and destroyed the staircase and reconstructed it (without the paint).”
Musya is undeterred. “They can only destroy,” she said. “They can’t make anything beautiful.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)