Central Asia

In recent days, Tashkent too celebrated its parliamentary elections, equally dividing the votes between the 42.7% of President Šavkat Mirziyoyev's liberal-democratic party and those of the other ‘alternative’ parties, but in reality all loyal to the current regime. While freedom of expression and of the press continues to shrink year by year.

Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkemnistan are also awaiting the outcome of the confrontation between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris with interest, considering the disruptive effects of world events on the region's prospects. Also hanging in the balance is the future of the ‘5+1’ contact format through which the White House has tried to gain footholds in the former Soviet area in recent years.

The trials of Tashkent's most notorious criminals go on in a blur between reports of torture in prison and incredibly mild sentences. With other prominent figures, fugitives abroad, appearing together with local politicians in the stands of major sporting events.

‘There are no serious problems between our countries,’ assures Dushanbe, and in regional organisations, Tajiks are the first to support the Russians' arguments. But in the meantime, disappointment is growing over the Russian authorities' relations with migrants who have suffered outrage and violent forms of discrimination since the Krokus City Hall bombing.

Fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters, not to mention broader levels of kinship and friendship, make Žogorku Keneš - the local parliament that will be renewed in the 17 November vote - a big family. With almost forty parties that are all more or less pro-government.

The referendum in which 71% of voters in Kazakhstan approved the construction of a new nuclear power plant is seen as a great opportunity for the Russian company Rosatom, one of the giants of the Russian economy that is resisting the weakening war phase and is currently building 20 reactors abroad.

In Tashkent, Salim Abduvaliev, a boss who was sentenced to six years in prison in his homeland to avoid heavier sentences in Kyrgyzstan. Powerful figures with dangerous entanglements with the world of politics and sport. So much so that even the excellent arrests raise more questions than certainties about the investigations against them.

The removal of billboards covering the traditional mosaics on the facades of buildings in the Uzbek capital has become a popular event at publicity festivals. While the Council of Ministers approved a decree to include them in the list of monumental art objects to be preserved.

Despite being officially prohibited in Bishkek polygamous marriages proliferate, facilitated by shadow agencies that function on Islamic principles. Their activities are also supported by celebrities. But human rights activists also tell the other side: the increase in appeals from women who have fallen into this trap.

The state media in Turkmenistan continue to spread news about social guarantees for all strata of the population, but the reality is much heavier. The regulation that was supposed to increase the allowance to 500 manat has remained unimplemented. Many are forced to ask their children for help, especially to buy medicine.

Two thousand participants from 80 countries attended the fourth edition of the international platform that brings together creatives, entrepreneurs and political authorities for dialogue, problem solving and the search for new development possibilities for a global creative economy, an initiative that was first proposed in Indonesia in 2018.

From education to foreign policy, the cooperation activities of the Organisation of Turkic States are growing. In the former Soviet countries of Central Asia, Erdogan is increasingly popular. While the project - already begun in Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev - to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one, closer to Turkish phonetics, remains in force.