By Grigor Hakobyan (11/16/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Despite the international support that the proposed constitutional amendments enjoy, a group of 20 parties that make up the opposition are advocating a ‘No’ vote in the referendum, while others call for a public boycott of the referendum. Although the opposition’s efforts undertaken in this direction have failed on several occasions in the past, the upcoming November 27 constitutional referendum in Armenia constitutes a good opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the government and of the President. The main constitutional amendments that are being contested by the Armenian political opposition are those of article 56 (granting of legal immunity to the President after the expiration of the term), article 80 (the power of the President to change Armenia’s borders with the approval of Parliament) and several other, including one that rules out a direct election for the mayor of Yerevan but instead has the mayor of Yerevan elected by a vote among elected officials in the city government.

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.

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.