It looks quite impressive and futuristic on first glance — a hotel that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star from the Star Wars films. Remarkably, however, the hotel will not be built in Las Vegas or Dubai. It is instead planned for Baku, capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Fan IQ thinks that the project is an attempt to increase Baku’s chances of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, and if so, the sports blog believes it might just have succeeded.

So although the 2016 Games are a long way off, if you’re a city that wants to host them, you better get your act together.

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, officially has it’s #$%@ together. They’re in the intense running for the 2016 Games - which will be announced next year - and I think they just took the lead.

How so?

Well, my friends, they’re going to build a hotel based off of the Death Star from Star Wars for the Games.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

Simon Maghakyan at Blogian just sent me an email to draw my attention to a new site he’s partly responsible for — the Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum. Interestingly, and somewhat commendably in my opinion, there’s also a blog component, Djulfa Blog: Sacred Stones Reduced to Dust.

The BBC reports that thousands of Georgians have once again protested against the outcome of last weekend’s presidential election called early after a state of emergency declared in November was lifted. The precise number of those attending the rally is so far unknown.

Thousands of opposition supporters have taken to the streets in Georgia in protest at what they say were rigged presidential elections last weekend.

Those gathered in the capital, Tbilisi, are demanding a second round of voting.

Pro-Western leader Mikhail Saakashvili polled 53%, narrowly averting a run-off against his nearest rival, Levan Gachechiladze, who won 25% of the vote.

[…]

But most of the opposition’s complaints about alleged violations have been rejected by the Georgian election commission and the courts.

The BBC’s Neil Arun, who was at the rally, said much of the protesters’ anger was directed at Western observers who have said the polls were essentially democratic, although there were significant problems.

The authorities have warned the demonstrators they will not tolerate any more civil unrest.

(more…)

Although I had mentioned this in the comments section of an entry on the Armenia Election Monitor at the beginning of December, a meeting with EurasiaNet’s Central Asia and Caucasus Editor last night reminded me of it once again. She asked me for my opinion on the election so far and I said pretty much I’ve been writing, but added that for now, I don’t see that Levon Ter Petrosian — or any of the other candidates for that matter — stand a chance of winning against Serzh Sarkisian.

Factor in Ter Petrosian’s low popularity rating in Armenia — seemingly below 10 percent whatever sympathetic journalists might have you believe — and the fact that street protests have always been the tactic of choice for the radical opposition, and there’s not really much chance for any “colored revolution” to occur let alone succeed. There’s also one other factor that makes the question of street protests all the more difficult after the presidential election on 19 February 2008.

That is, as Karabakh Open reported, it will be the 20th Anniversary of the Karabakh Movement the following day and there are plans to stage a number of events to celebrate the fact. It is unclear from the article whether the celebrations will be held in Armenia, Karabakh or both.

However, as the 20th Anniversary of the Sumgait pogroms occurs nine days later, it looks as though events will stretch through the entire week following the election. One has to wonder how possible it is for the opposition — radical or not — to stage effective protests when other Armenians will be celebrating and mourning two of the most significant dates for an independent post-Soviet Armenia immediately after the presidential vote.

20TH ANNIVERSARY OF MOVEMENT WILL BE MARKED THE DAY AFTER THE ARMENIAN ELECTION

KarabakhOpen
03-12-2007 10:33:23

The government set up a state committee to prepare the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Karabakh movement. The starting day is February 20 when in 1988 the Soviet of People’s Deputies of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and Shahumyan extended a request to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the unification with Armenia.

By the way, the Armenian presidential election will be held on February 19, and the outcome may influence the celebration. Especially that most controversies among the candidates of the Karabakh issue. What will the stance of the new Armenian government on the settlement of the Karabakh issue be?

Will the stance of the Armenian government on the Karabakh issue change 20 years after the movement? What new can the Armenian government offer Karabakh in the current situation? The options are quite few.

(more…)

The Economist carries an article on today’s vote and appears to conclude that the vote will see the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, returned to power for a second term in office. Although the conduct of the vote will very likely be considered by the international community to fall short of that which brought him to power four years ago, it will also probably still be considered better than those conducted in neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan.

For sure, with the U.S. and Europe closely monitoring the election, the stakes are far too high for Saakashvili to resort to precisely the same methods employed by his counterparts in Georgia’s two neighboring republics. Famous last words, perhaps, but all will be clearer tomorrow.

THE presidential election in Georgia on Saturday January 5th is a landmark in the history of the ex-communist world. Mikheil Saakishvili, a charismatic figure who has by turns dazzled and disappointed his many admirers at home and abroad, is battling both to be re-elected and to shore up his credibility as a reformer and friend of the West.

The conduct of the election will be an important bellwether for another embattled cause: the principle of fair, pluralist democracy in a part of the world where it has suffered. Last month’s parliamentary elections in Russia were denounced as grossly unfair by the few international observers who were allowed to watch. The parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan, last August, disappointed even those who wish the country well. Georgia’s neighbours present a dismal spectacle: in Azerbaijan, to raise a voice against the regime, especially in the media, is to risk a long jail term; in Armenia, the opposition has little access to the airwaves.

[…] He is, on balance, the favourite to prevail over his six rivals, and he may do so in the first round. (If no candidate gets more than 50% there will be a run-off on January 19th.) But in this paradoxical poll, a strong showing by the opposition—proving that Mr Saakashvili really is prepared to buck the authoritarian trend—would provide badly-needed reassurance about the state of Georgian democracy, and a boost to the president’s moral authority.

[…]

As Georgia’s young democracy is discovering, open economies and open political systems can have all kinds of inconvenient consequences. But as the experience of many other post-Soviet states can demonstrate, abandoning those principles can have pretty bad effects too.

The full article is here.

A quick look at Wikipedia’s electoral calendar confirms one thing. Perhaps rather poignantly, the Year of the Rat is definitely shaping up as the year of elections. That’s certainly the case in the South Caucasus where today Georgians vote in a presidential election, but also for Armenia which will hold its own next month. And in October, Azerbaijan will also hold a presidential election, and as in the other two South Caucasus republics, the opposition doesn’t look likely to stand much of a chance at all.

Christine Quirk at Asking Tough Questions in Tough Places looks ahead to the presidential election in Azerbaijan and attempts to debunk five myths about the political situation in the country. As the former Country Director for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Azerbaijan, her opinion and analysis is interesting to say the least.

Did you like Russia’s election? Get used to that model because many of the same strategies and tactics will be used by Azerbaijan’s ruling party (YAP) in the October 2008 Presidential election. I doubt, however, that Ilham Aliyev will be satisfied with Unified Russia’s 64%.

[…]

[…] I don’t think Aliyev is unpopular but his popularity is the kind enjoyed by a leader who has no opposition: it’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Soviet-style media outlets in Azerbaijan exist solely to promote his trips abroad, the schools and hospitals he opens and the growing economy over which he presides. If there’s no media coverage of his shortcomings or any outlet for opposing views or any party or candidate offering an alternative, how can voters make an informed choice?

[…]

[…] Aliyev will be issue-oriented to the degree it demonstrates that, as the head of his clan, he’s handing out enough goodies to make everyone happy. There will be no
discussion about whether or not his approach is right for the country, whether his priorities are right or whether there’s any accountability for the future.

[…] Let’s make one thing clear: the political parties in Azerbaijan are a disaster. That assessment includes the ruling party, the opposition parties and the ones created on behalf of the government to placate the West. The opposition parties in Azerbaijan share many negative characteristics with political parties throughout the former Soviet Union, where freedom of assembly, press freedom and freedom of association are curtailed. Not only is it next to impossible for them to operate democratically in these environments, the parties that grow in those conditions are usually as stunted, myopic, incompetent and corrupt as the regimes they wish to replace.

Continual losses in falsified elections nourish opposition leadership and allows them to thrive on the illusion that they will achieve power if only elections were free and fair. Nothing would do more to flush out the gene pool of the opposition leadership in Azerbaijan than a reasonably free and fair election in which they achieved the 30%-35% they probably deserve. Then, and only then, would a genuine internal assessment take place and new leadership offering an alternative direction of the party emerge. Until then, the parties are stuck with the same leadership that served them so effectively during the 1990s. Watch them fight and bicker among themselves in the coming months and then each run a candidate for President, just like they did in 2003.

(more…)

The BBC reports that voting has begun in a snap presidential election in Georgia called after opposition protests turned violent and a state of emergency was declared in the former Soviet republic. Georgians are also taking part in a referendum to determine when the country’s parliamentary election should be held.

According to the report, albeit somewhat controversially, many opinion polls show the Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili leading the pack of seven candidates in the vote, but it is uncertain whether victory can be attained in a first round.

The polls also suggest that Mr Saakashvili’s closest rival will be Levan Gachechiladze, the wine businessman and independent MP chosen by the main opposition bloc as their candidate.

At a polling station in the capital, Tbilisi, Nodar Zardiashvili, said he had voted for Mr Saakashvili.

He told the AFP news agency that he backed the president “because he is doing the right thing by taking the country into Nato and the European Union”.

Nino Saladze, another voter in the capital, said she was supporting Mr Gachechiladze.

“We’ve had enough of Mr Saakashvili, November was the last straw,” she told the AFP.

[…]

On the eve of the elections, Mr Saakashvili said Georgia was still a democratic pioneer among former Soviet republics, despite the crackdown on the opposition protests in November.

[…]

“We have to show the whole world that Georgian democracy is still alive,” he told thousands of supporters at a final campaign rally in the capital, Tbilisi.

(more…)

In a matter of a few hours at time of writing, Georgians will go to the polls to vote in a presidential election called prematurely after a state of emergency followed opposition protests in Tbilisi at the beginning of November. After Mikhail Saakashvili came to power when street protests forced his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, to resign during the so-called “Rose Revolution,” things have improved significantly in Georgia.

However, many Georgians are quite openly critical of Saakashvili. While still believing in the premise of the 2003 revolution and still convinced of the need for reform, many consider him mentally unstable and even question the official account of the circumstances surrounding prime minister Zurab Zhvania’s untimely death in 2005. Even so, despite some setbacks, Georgia was considered a beacon of relative democracy in the South Caucasus.

Until November 2007, that is. When riot police used excessive force, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse an opposition rally in downtown Tbilisi, concerns about democracy in Georgia came to the fore. Today, the former Soviet republic’s democratic credentials will again be put to the test. However, the BBC reports that the opposition are already crying foul.

The main opposition candidate in Georgia’s snap presidential election has accused the authorities of preparing to rig Saturday’s vote.

“What is currently happening in Georgia is not a free election,” Levan Gachechiladze said in a statement broadcast on Georgian television.

[…]

Mr Gachechiladze complained that “we cannot use media outlets or promotional means”.

He added that a “smear campaign” was being staged against the opposition in the media.

(more…)

While there are many reasons to criticize the situation the country found itself in under the former president, Levon Ter Petrosian, there is perhaps one area of policy which might endear himself to the international community and which could result in dramatic changes inside Armenia and the South Caucasus. That is, when it comes to foreign policy, Ter Petrosian is said to favor a concessionary peace deal with Azerbaijan to resolve the long-standing conflict over Nagorno Karabakh and normalized relations with Turkey.

When Ter Petrosian held his first pre-election public meeting in Yerevan’s Liberty Square in October, such a possibility was not lost on the international news wires. The Associated Press was particularly upbeat on the prospect for regional stability and integration.

If successful, his return to office could signal a major shift in Armenia’s fraught relations with neighbours Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Ter-Petrosian, 62, is an advocate of compromise with the two countries, which have closed their borders and imposed economic embargoes over Armenia’s support for the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh.

[…]

Armenia needed to end its regional isolation by normalising relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, he said.

“Until we have resolved the questions of the blockade of Armenia, relations with our neighbours and Karabakh, Armenia cannot develop and strengthen,” he said.

“As a result of the criminal policies of the current government, Azerbaijan has only toughened its position and will not seek compromise,” he added.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

With 2008 less than a day away at time of writing, it seems only appropriate to take a look back at the blogging highlights in the Caucasus for 2007. Certainly, although blogging is still largely underdeveloped, the year has seen some major highlights, especially with regards to stories that also made headlines worldwide. In the past this has not been the case, but the signs for Armenian and Georgian blogging look very promising indeed, and not least because the first two months of 2008 will see crucial presidential elections take place in both republics.

Although the same might be true for Azerbaijan as its presidential election scheduled for late next year looms closer, the elections seem to have encouraged citizens, activists and journalists to blog. Other high profile events also seem to have pushed more bloggers to engage in online discussion on key issues, especially in the arguably more evolved Armenian blogging scene. Interestingly, however, the first major blogging event of the year came on 19 January 2007 when journalist and editor, Hrant Dink, was murdered in Istanbul, Turkey.

Although Dink was a Turkish citizen and resident in Armenia’s neighbor to the West, he was also an ethnic Armenian and prolific in his calls for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks. His views might have alienated himself from the larger Armenian Diaspora who consider that Genocide Recognition is the most important issue facing Armenians today, but the point was that his assassination shocked the world, including many Turks in Turkey itself as well as those with no links to Armenian circles at all.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

In countries such as Armenia where the mainstream broadcast media is firmly under the control of government-connected businessmen and/or officials, while the traditional print and online media largely reflects the opposition in the country, there is no doubt that blogs have an important role to play in the dissemination of information, news and views.

[…]

But rather than change as the result of alternative, opposition voices seeking to involve themselves in the internal political life of the country, the situation might now be changing because of four bloggers who protested on and offline against an event staged early this week at a Yerevan school to promote peace and reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[…]

The four Live Journal bloggers — Uzogh, Pigh, Aerial_vortex and Akunamatata_ser — were however angered by the attempt to hold such an event at a school run by Armenia’s former Minister of Education, Ashot Bleyan, who is notorious for what many consider to be “anti-Armenian” positions on Nagorno Karabakh and Genocide recognition. Speaking to Global Voices for this post, Uzogh explains why the four bloggers staged the action.

On December 14, the day when the press release announcing the event at Bleyan’s school was sent to public, I wrote a post [RUS] expressing my anger towards the organizers and sponsors of this event. The post resulted in many comments and a rather long discussion with Mark Grigoryan (Armenian journalist now residing in UK).

Some of the participants of this discussion suggested doing something to make this event a failure, but I preferred to take some time out for reflection before resorting to action. A day later, I concluded that an aggressive action would not result in the failure of the event, but would rather turn the organizers into some kind of victims which would lead to increased publicity and additional fund raising opportunities.

That’s why I instead preferred to pursue a tactic of mockery and shared this idea with a few bloggers that had already expressed their intention to join any protest action. We had a brainstorming at my house on Sunday and figured out what could be done.

I didn’t want to make this a public protest action, and none of us are members of any political party or non-formal group etc, so we did not aim to attract a lot of supporters. This was the protest by a few men and citizens, and not a civic action. At its core was the concept that we didn’t like the strategy of unilateral reconciliation through the brain-washing of children.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.