By Pavel K. Baev (3/8/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND:From the very start of his presidency, Putin sought to compensate the strong priority in Russia’s foreign policy granted to Armenia, a trusted military ally, with a new emphasis on building ties with Azerbaijan. Paying his first visit to Baku in January 2001, he sought to establish a personal rapport with President Heydar Aliyev, while never bothering to develop any ‘special chemistry’ with Kocharyan. Accentuating their common background in the KGB, Putin skillfully played on the age difference, assuring the ‘grand master’ of Azerbaijan’s politics that Moscow would have no objections whatsoever against his cherished plan for the transfer of power to his son Ilham.

By Bakhtiyor Naimov (2/22/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Consolidation of power has become popular in Central Asia in the beginning of the new century, as all incumbents presidents after the collapse of the USSR finished their terms. President Rakhmonov is not the inventor but rather a follower of the rule of extension of terms. Tajikistan’s head of state, however, has one considerable advantage over his fellow Central Asian Presidents – the support of the general population as an advocate of peace in the country.

By Kevin Daniel Leahy (2/22/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: The parliamentary elections held in Chechnya late last year were dismissed in advance by numerous human rights organizations as little more than a specious exercise in quasi-democracy. Conversely, the Kremlin and its minions in Chechnya have been eager to portray the elections as a seminal part of ‘normalization’ - a process which both claim is well underway within the republic. However, it is widely believed that the chief purpose of the November 27 elections was to consolidate the political authority of the administration’s undoubted power broker, first deputy prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov.