A showdown is brewing in Kyrgyzstan, one of Central Asia’s most politically unpredictable states. With almost indecent haste in June, parliament authorized a series of investigations into the affairs of former president Almazbek Atambayev. He is implicated in an array of crimes, with his arrest looming. The outspoken ex-leader, who was until earlier this year chairman of the ruling party, is refusing to obey a summons to appear for questioning. How long he can hold out at his luxury family compound, not far from the capital city Bishkek, is unclear. Hundreds of his supporters have been gathered outside for weeks – some are reportedly armed, while others carry placards denouncing Kyrgyzstan as lawless.

Atambayev says that he is the victim of a witch hunt, and that current President Sooronbai Jeenbekov is spearheading a campaign to have political opponents imprisoned, knowing that accusations of corruption have a habit of resulting in lengthy jail terms. If this is the case, Jeenbekov learned this strategy from Atambayev, who instigated his own ‘war on corruption’ while he was in office between 2011 and 2017. Within this, he targeted his foes, which included Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the opposition Ata Meken party, who was jailed for eight years just before Atambayev left office.

Jeenbekov, from Osh, the largest city in the south of the country, was Atambayev’s handpicked successor when he came to power in late 2017, enjoying a strong personal endorsement and a resounding win at the polls. But soon, tensions between the two Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) colleagues began to surface. These finally exploded when Atambayev launched a blistering attack on parliament on June 8. Deputies quickly convened a plenary session, and set in motion a mechanism to remove Atambayev’s immunity from prosecution. A commission was formed to compile a shopping list of alleged crimes ranging from harassment, abuse of power, and corruption. Rumours about Atambayev’s wife’s finances are also swirling. This type of wider attack, that nets family members of the accused, is typical of Central Asia.

Kyrgyz politics can be brutal. The first and second presidents of the state live in exile. Both have been accused of corruption on a grand scale, as well as other serious crimes including murder. Askar Akayev fled the country during the Tulip Revolution of 2005; his successor Kurmanbek Bakiev and his family were violently ousted from office in 2010 after they stripped the country of valuable assets. Only Kyrgyzstan’s interim president who served 2010-2011, Roza Otunbaeva, retains the privilege of immunity now that Atambayev faces a criminal investigation.

Despite a succession of wars on corruption, Kyrgyzstan has not become any cleaner, and nor is it likely to, as anti-corruption efforts are instrumentalised by successive regimes, while serious political and economic corruption go unchecked in any meaningful way. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Index, Kyrgyzstan languishes 132nd place in its table of 180 countries. Though not quite as bad as some of its neighbors, this is hardly a beacon for the rule of law either. For some of Kyrgyzstan’s partners, including Russia and China, this level of graft is not a barrier to trade and relations. Indeed, it may even lubricate how multi-million dollar deals are cut.

Kyrgyzstan has been the recipient of over one billion dollars in grants in the past decade. But donors, including the European Union and its member states, have for too long played down the insidious impact of corruption on the political fabric of the country and its ability to stabilize itself. Corruption is so ingrained and normalized at every level of society that some observers defend small-scale corruption as a harmless tradition, a cash-in-hand perk for underpaid teachers, police officers, doctors and nurses. Donors tend to side step the impact of corruption, and repeated attempts to overhaul political processes, ministries, the police and judiciary systems have been unsuccessful.  There can be no rule of law while corruption flourishes. Nor can there be political stability when both corruption and the fight against corruption are the hand tools of those who seek to gain, wield or consolidate power.

The stakes in Kyrgyzstan are high. Memories of two revolutions in 2005 and 2010 followed by deadly inter-ethnic violence in 2010 are still fresh. The risks are exacerbated by the continuous failure of governments to tackle pressing economic and political issues, including corruption. Poverty and inequality are compounded by the poor delivery of social services, and the economy depends on remittances from labour migrants working in Russia and elsewhere.

The political elite are a product of corruption, and despite the bluster around Atambayev, no one is able – or willing it seems – to dismantle a system that both enriches and empowers a lucky few. Under Atambayev, the spoils of corruption were simply redistributed, while the accusation of corruption became an indispensable weapon in the political arena. He should not be surprised that his legacy has come back to bite him in this manner.

L'articolo Kyrgyzstan’s Corruption Continues Under Another Presidency proviene da InsideOver.

Serbia is set to sign a free trade agreement later this year with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian led trading bloc. As Serbia’s relationship with Brussels flounders over Belgrade’s failure to recognise Kosovo, its accession to the European Union in 2025 seems increasingly overly ambitious. Russia, meanwhile, is keen to consolidate its influence in the Balkan state.

The free trade agreement that Serbia negoitated with the EEU may be comprehensive, but it is nothing special. Belgrade already has free trade arrangements with the EEU’s most powerful members, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The agreement, which is to be inked in October, only expands Serbia’s market to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, both small states with strained coffers teetering on the edge of irrelevancy in terms of trading potential.

If Belgrade does join the EU as planned in the next six years, it will be obliged to drop its bilateral free trade agreements. But there is no need to think that far ahead. The political significance of the agreement with the EEU is priceless, especially from Moscow’s perspective, even though it could be short lived.

The EEU was set up in 2015, consisting of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It later expanded to include Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan was strong-armed into joining with senior politicians, reporting that they had no choice in the matter as Kazakhstan could, if it wanted to, shutter cross-border trade. Last year, Serbia’s trade with EEU members was worth $3.4 billion while trade with the EU was worth $28.6 billion.

The EEU labours under the suspicion that it is a political tool designed to look like economic cooperation, with Russia and other members firmly denying this. But at its ideological core, it is not a set of economic principles, but rather the concept of Eurasianism, an ambiguous idea first mooted in the early 20^th century. Eurasianism maintains that the part-Slavic and part-Turkic culture and society of Russia and its neighbours is unique from that of Western Europe. There are several interpretations of the concept today, ranging from the hyper-nationalistic and vehemently anti-liberal, to the Russian version of ‘Make America Great Again’ whereby Moscow reasserts its regional and global clout and relevance in full Soviet-esque glory. A more pragmatic, but not as widely held, interpretation holds that Eurasian integration, especially Economic integration, is laudable on the regional level and a potential vehicle for cooperation between the East and the West.

Previous regional efforts at economic integration in the Former Soviet Union have been largely ineffective. The EEU, like precursors such as the Customs Union, is heavy on signing ceremonies and pomp, but light on results. Russian actions in Ukraine alongside meddling elsewhere have done little to persuade observers that the EEU is not a project designed to extend Russian influence. The EU is sometimes tempted, but ultimately reluctant, to lend the EEU any credibility through engagement. An organisation like the EEU could, in theory, provide mechanisms to deepen and enhance relations between the EU, its member states, and the members of the EEU. While Russia and the EU remain locked in a stand-off over Ukraine, meaningful cooperation is impossible for both sides.

Belgrade’s upcoming free trade agreement with the EEU is a symptom of ambivalence towards the EU. Deeper diplomatic and economic ties with Russia are a not-so-subtle way of signalling national sovereignty amid tensions over Kosovo’s independence. As a strategic policy direction, it is short sighted. Though Russia is an important trading partner, it is eclipsed by the EU, which is the largest economy in the world. But the lurch towards Moscow fits with the overall thrust of where Serbia appears to be going politically. It performs poorly on key indicators such as corruption, media freedom and judicial independence – all key characteristics of Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

Like elsewhere in Eastern Europe, nationalism and the nostalgia it fosters is growing. Political leaders are keen to rekindle affinities with Moscow, even if that means irritating or alarming the EU. It speaks to a domestic audience that subscribes to propaganda prevalent in the Russian-media sphere about a morally and fiscally dissolute Europe. Serbia’s current course, however, also underscores the delicate balancing act between Russia and the West that many formerly Communist countries have been compelled to negotiate since the 1990s.

From the Kremlin’s perspective, the free trade agreement with Serbia is quite a coup. It is an incursion into territory poised, however precariously, to become part of the EU club. It fans the idea of Slavic and Serbian exceptionalism. Russia is on the side of hardliners in Serbia who refuse to countenance the recognition of Kosovo. They are ready to see the current impasse militarised if necessary. In this context, the free trade agreement’s political significance is immense. Serbia’s willingness to instrumentalise tensions with Kosovo is worrisome, as is its apparent willingness to complicate its ongoing accession negotiations with the EU. For Russian this is a win-win. For Serbia, an opportunity sorely squandered.

L'articolo Can the Eurasian Economic Union Compete with the West? proviene da InsideOver.

A prison riot in Tajikistan leaves scores dead and the government blames it on Islamic State. As the possibility of political transition grows imminent in this remote but strategic Central Asian state, the government will likely amp up the threat from Islamic extremists in order to bolster their legitimacy. But observers and policy makers should beware, little is at it seems and the ruling elite are politically and morally bankrupt. Their chief currency is fear, and as presidential elections loom next year it is probable that there will be ever more of it in circulation.

According to the Tajik Justice Ministry three prison guards and 29 inmates died on 19-20 May when rioting broke out in a high security prison not far from the capital Dushanbe. It was the second prison riot in less than six months, also blamed on Islamic State. As is often the case, be it an unforeseen riot or a carefully planned security operation, among the victims are political opponents of President Emomali Rahmon who has been in power since a bloody civil war in the 1990s lefts tens of thousands of Tajiks dead.

Since then, Rahmon has traded on the fear and exhaustion war causes, and when it seems like the country may be about to move on — more than half of Tajikistan’s population is too young to have direct memories of the civil war — more threats to the state are created and genuine threats are exaggerated to the point of incredulity. In a corrupt and repressive state like Tajikistan, the government can coast on its own narrative for many years, but the inevitable fall out from this this degree of misrule should be of concern not just to Tajikistan’s near neighbours, Russia and China, but to Western powers also.

Rahmon has obliterated the political opposition in Tajikistan branding them terrorists and traitors. Politicians and activists who were not able to secure exile are languishing in Tajikistan’s prisons on dubious charges, confessions obtained through torture while their extended families are continually harassed by the security services. As result, even if the population were looking for an alternative to the Rahmon clan in the upcoming elections, there are no options left other than the President has his equally venal family.

Nobody should be under any illusions about the nature of power in Tajikistan. It is a house of cards shoddily glued together by nepotism, graft, the ongoing theft of the nation’s resources and grave human rights abuses. Thousands of ordinary citizens fear the security services and the notion that the law might be applied equally to all is alien. To date, Tajikistan’s international partners have been less than robust in their criticisms. This is in part because of Tajikistan’s geographic position. It has a long, porous border with northern Afghanistan, and in the east it nestles against China’s troubled Xinjiang region. Russia has a military presence in the country and appears unworried by Rahmon’s excesses so long as he is capable of maintaining the status quo. China has quietly slipped into the area with a military base at what was once a Soviet outpost in use during the Russian-Afghan war. Meanwhile, the US has funnelled money to the government’s coffers to train Rahmon’s personal guards, enhance border security and stem the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan, with no real measure of success. Still, the funding continues.

But yet Tajikistan is an economic mess and would be hard pressed to defend itself from an external threat. It is deeply in debt to China. Most working aged men, and some women in this intensely patriarchal society, move to Russia for jobs. The brain drain suits Rahmon as it rids the country of those most likely to scrutinise or protest. However resentment bubbles away, not only among those economically marginalised but increasingly among those Rahmon might have once considered his natural allies. The president has been so focused on concentrating power in the hands of his family that he has excluded other influential networks from government. Banks, entire government departments, state owned and private entities of any worth, are controlled by his dependents. A violent internal backlash, should it occur, could destabilise Central Asia beyond Tajikistan’s borders. But by billing Islamic State and its alleged cohorts as the main danger to Tajik stability, Rahmon has externalised the threat and seeks to divert attention elsewhere.

Up to 2,000 Tajik citizens are believed to have joined Islamic State, including the high profile defection of a senior security chief to the group in 2015. In July 2018, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a brutal roadside attack that killed four Western tourists. But Tajikistan’s neighbours and partners should be clear eyed. The main risk to peace, progress and stability is Rahmon’s iron fist. As it stands, the 2020 elections are not an opportunity for positive change but just an upcoming episode in the Rahmon family saga featuring real and imagined villains.

L'articolo Tajikistan Prison Riot proviene da InsideOver.

Ultra-conservative upstarts Vox gained 24 seats in the Spanish parliament in a general election held on April 28. Despite it being the third general election in just four years, turnout was high and the centre left Socialists Workers Party, the PSOE, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, gained 123 seats. It was a decent but not decisive victory as the PSOE must now form a coalition government. Vox, despite making inroads, lack the seats and law making experience to drive legislation. But their arrival in parliament is a significant development for Spain as the far right have been in the political wilderness since the death of fascist dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.

Vox, who scored their first major victory in regional elections in Andalusia in December 2018 by winning 12 seats, are not subtle. Led by Santiago Abascal, they campaigned on the re-conquest of Spain from “enemies” including migrants, feminists, liberals, Muslims, Catalan separatists and headline-grabbing demands such as the expulsion of 52,000 immigrants and the abolition of gender violence laws. By forming a coalition with the conservative Peoples Party and the centre-right Citizen’s party, Vox ousted the PSOE, which held power in southern Spain for 36 years, from the regional parliament amid a flurry of national and international headlines.

Formed in 2013 as an off shoot of the PP, Vox – like other populist far right parties such as Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland and Italy’s Lega – possess an outsized ability to shape discourse and garner media attention. Vox thrives on the idea that a culture war is under way not only in Spain but across the continent. They pit traditional family values against “feminazis” and homosexuals, and they like to equate migrants with criminals and invaders. They avoid mainstream media outlets preferring instead to woo voters with inadvertently camp, quasi-historical social media videos of men on horseback and homophobic tweets.

What Vox lacks in subtlety they also lack in originality. From a Trump style wall around Spanish enclaves in north Africa to keep migrants, especially Muslim migrants, out to the type of aggressive social conservatism afoot in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, there is little to distinguish Vox’s platform from similar far right parties elsewhere in Europe. They are reactionaries against a Europe they see as having abandoned traditional, God-fearing, flag loving family values for liberalism, taxes and foreigners. Those who do not support their conservative vision are branded cowards, traitors and enemies.

Vox’s rise from the radical fringe to serious political party appears to have split the conservative vote in Spain while giving momentum to the public airing of views once deemed incompatible with post-Franco society. Middle ground conservatives faired worst in the general election, with the once ruling but scandal ridden PP losing more than 50% of its seats in the 350 seat parliament – 66 seats from 137. Cowed by Vox’s bombastic rhetoric, they risked losing centrist inclined supporters if they lurched any further to the right.

As the elections showed, most working class voters in Spain cast their ballot for the centre-left. To date Vox has not courted that segment of the vote with either seriousness or success instead polling most of their support with disillusioned middle class PP supporters in central and southern Spain.

The PSOE’s victory underscores how a majority of Spaniards remain politically moderate, pro-social inclusion and pro-Europe, and the PSOE’s winning strategy may well serve as a template for other centre-left parties fighting elections across the Europe Union. Sanchez is now the only social democrat leading a major European country. But Vox’s rise puts Spain in the same camp as other countries grappling with an invigorated far right touting nationalistic and anti-progressive policies and getting airtime as a result.

As Spain’s ideological fissures grow, the country faces a series of challenges that can only be addressed by skilful lawmakers, and Vox have little to no experience of office. Unemployment remains as high as 27% in some provinces, and the country is economically divided with the average wage in the south being just 19,132 euros per year compared to 34,916 euros or more in Madrid and Catalonia. Like other Eurozone countries, Spain is still in anti-austerity mode and Sanchez delivered a nuanced campaign message that acknowledged the difficulties, striking the right note with the electorate while saying nothing that would alarm Brussels or the banks.

Later this month, on May 26, Spain will hold European and municipal elections. The campaign is far from over. Vox’s rally cry of “re-conquest” may have reached the peak of its appeal, but any further gains at the ballot box will mean that Spain will no longer be able to claim that it is one of the few formerly fascist states in Europe able to resist a contemporary surge in the far right.

L'articolo Vox Puts Spanish Politics to the Test proviene da InsideOver.