By Timur Dadabaev (5/31/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: In the majority of Central Asian countries, what is desired by the population is often assumed based on the views of governmental officials. This leads to the lack of public confidence in their respective governments. The Asia Barometer survey in the fall of 2005 registered that in most Central Asian countries (except Turkmenistan) the public trusts their central government only to a degree.

By Emil Souleimanov (5/31/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Even with Vladimir Putin having made, as it turned out retroactively, a strategic wager on the Kadyrov clan, it appears that Moscow has never abandoned its tried and true system of checks and balances. For instance, Bislan Gantamirov, perhaps the most noteworthy “opposition leader” in modern Chechen history, along with some pro-Russian political figures, was long kept in Chechnya as a trump card that could be played as needed if the former mufti, Ahmad Kadyrov, were to become unmanageable. They had been promised a brilliant future in politics, but were told that their time simply had not yet come.

By Alman Mir Ismail (5/17/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: On May 13, Azerbaijan held “mini” parliamentary elections, re-runs in the ten constituency remaining vacant since last November due to the election fraud there and the subsequent annulment of the election results by the Central Election Commission and the Constitutional Court. These re-elections presented the government of Azerbaijan with another opportunity to prove to the international community and domestic voters that it is capable of pulling together its political will and to conduct free and fair elections. At the same time, it presented a new test to the international community, more specifically to the Council of Europe, where Azerbaijan’s commitments to democracy will be discussed in the June session.