AFGHANISTAN’S ELECTIONS: DEMOCRACY WITHOUT PARTIES?
By Rahimullah Yusufzai (11/16/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Under the terms of the Bonn accord, a transitional government headed by President Hamid Karzai was installed following the ouster of the Taliban through a military invasion spearheaded by the US Army. An emergency Loya Jirga in 2002 conferred an element of legitimacy on the government set-up. It was followed the next year by the constitutional Loya Jirga, which gave Afghanistan a new constitution and set the timetable for holding the presidential and parliamentary elections.KAZAKHSTAN LAYS LEGAL BASIS FOR DEEPER COOPERATION WITH NATO
By Roger N McDermott (11/2/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On October 5, Ambassador Robert Simmons, Special Representative of the NATO Secretary-General for the Caucasus and Central Asia, held forthright talks with Army General Mukhtar Altynbayev, Kazakhstan’s Defence Minister, exploring options on how best to deepen the level of Kazakhstan’s existing PfP cooperation, aimed at promoting regional security and modernising the Kazakhstani armed forces. The Kazakhstani MoD plans to create a regional center based on its Peacekeeping Battalion (KAZBAT) to train bomb disposal experts for possible future service in international peace support operations. Simmons mooted the idea of utilizing the PfP Planning and Review Process (PARP) project to include setting up a team by 2007 to react to disasters, including those that resulted from the use of weapons of mass destruction or major terrorist incidents.GEORGIA’S SCAPEGOAT: THE OSCE IN SOUTH OSSETIA
By Markus Bernath (11/2/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Georgia’s French-born former Foreign minister Salome Zourabishvili, who was forced out recently, put it bluntly: “We cannot believe that this is the organization that can solve our problems”, she said after a series of incidents on South Ossetia’s “independence day” on September 20, referring to her year-long history of growing frustration with the OSCE. Zourabishvili several times traveled to the OSCE Permanent Council in order to plead for an increase in military observers in South Ossetia, and for the prolongation of the OSCE border observation mission on Georgia’s border with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Daghestan. But Russia only conceded to some three more observers and blocked the mission.PRESIDENT ALIYEV’S SHAKEUP: A CHANGING PORTRAIT
By Alman Mir Ismail (11/2/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: When President Ilham Aliyev was elected to the presidency in October 2003, many expected sweeping political and economic reforms and significant cadre changes. After all, President Aliyev was young and had extensive experience working with Western companies as well as democracy building organizations, such as the Council of Europe and OSCE. Yet the slow pace of cadre changes made many both inside and outside Azerbaijan believe that Ilham Aliyev lacked the charisma, power and determination to deal with the “old guard”, implying members of the administration that had served under his father and since then grew into corrupt, powerful and well-networked power centers in the country.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.