On 11 -13 of May Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation arranged a conference in Sarajevo in co-operation with PDP, one of the two Bosnian parties that the foundation works with. The participants were young candidates and campaign managers and the focus was on preparing for the local elections in October. The speaker was Oscar Öholm, MP, Kristoffer Tamsons, senior consultant at Hallvarsson & Halvarsson and Sebastian Tham, press secretary. (more…)
Newsletter no 4/2012
Read an interview with Stephen B. Nix, International Republican Institute, about the developments in Ukraine.”The opposition is uniting” he explains. MP Christian Holm is answering questions about hockey in Belarus. Read more
New Thematic Page about Azerbaijan
Democracy for Azerbaijan is a thematic page with links to information about the developments in the country, including links to various articles and websites about the Eurovision Song Contest, that will be held in Baku May 22-26. Read more
Report on Azerbaijan prior to Eurovision Song Contest
Read interviews about the developments in Azerbaijan. In this report it is explained how Azerbaijan is governed by a dictatorship, I e president Aliyev and his clan.
News
During the weekend representatives of the Ukrainian opposition held a political forum in the centre of Kyiv. The attending parties discussed the final draft of a resolution representing the united opposition before the upcoming Parliamentary elections. The participants condemned repressions and the deteriorating democracy in Ukraine. The meeting also criticized the situation for human rights in Ukraine, the government’s economic policies, especially those that have led to soaring taxes and an unfavourable pension reforms. (more…)
May 7-10, the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation arranged a party leadership visit to Brussels for the National Independence Party of Azerbaijan (NIPA). The goal with the visit was to strengthen the party’s contacts with European institutions and politicians. NIPA is an opposition party to the Azeri dictatorship and since many years a member of the International Democrat Union (IDU). One of the party’s goals for its international cooperation is to become an observer member of the European People’s Party (EPP). (more…)
Georgian Youth Politicians Learn About Campaigning
May 11th, 2012 Caucasus | Education | Georgia | News“Act instead of talking” was the slogan of the Georgian government party, United National Movement (UNM) in the last Presidential election in 2008. Since then, the government has in fact acted. Corruption, which after independence was widespread, has been reduced and economic growth has increased. There is still work to be done in order for the country to become a full democracy and in October it will be determined whether President Mikheil Saakashvili and the UNM will get four more years to approach that goal. The election campaign has already begun and international election observers have been invited. (more…)
Oleg Buklemishev.
Vladimir Putin has for a third time taken office as Russian president. Though, he is coming back to a country in a very different mood, says Oleg Buklemishev, Economist and Advisor to opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov. “The scene of the inauguration car passing through an empty city is quite symbolic”. Buklemishev is convinced that the authorities’ violence towards mostly peaceful protesters shows that “intolerance towards dissent will only increase during new Putin term. Instead of bridging the national divide he has clearly chosen to polarize society even more”. Her believes that even the “weakest” of Medvedev’s “political reform” can be revoked in this environment (more…)
With almost 98 percent of the votes counted, social liberal incumbent Boris Tadić, Democratic Party (DS) received 25.33 percent of the votes, while ex-nationalist Tomislav Nikolić from Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) got 24.99 percent in the presidential elections on May 6, reported b92.net. It came as no surprise that these are the two rivals that will face each other in the second round on May 20. Serbia won EU candidate status in March and both parties favor EU-membership.
The presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Vojislav Kostunica won 7.44 percent of the votes, while the candidate of the United Regions of Serbia (URS) Zoran Stankovic scored 6.56%, reported the Serbian government on its home page srbija.gov.rs. The Hajlmarson Foundation is cooperation with both these parties. (more…)
Copyright Ilya Yashin (Solidarnost)
Today Vladimir Putin will for a third time take office as Russian president. At the same time he is facing protests against his command over political affairs in Russia.
“Police on Sunday used batons and charging tactics to break up an anti-Putin rally in the centre of Moscow which had been sanctioned by the authorities but had descended into chaos,” reported British The Telegraph. The opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on his home page nemtsov.ru wrote that “according to the Interior Ministry in Moscow 436 people were arrested”, though the opposition claims that the list is much longer: about 650 detainees. Three key leaders of the protest movement were arrested: anti-corruption campaigner and blogger Alexei Navalny, liberal politician Boris Nemtsov and left-wing leader Sergei Udaltsov. Nemtsov was released after being sentenced to pay a fine. The other two opposition leaders are still imprisoned. (more…)
The Croatian President Ivo Josipovic last week joined European leaders who will not attend a Yalta summit in mid-May. The Croatian president’s office said that one of the reasons for the decision is suspected human rights violations in Ukraine. The news comes after a foreign ministry spokesman in Ukraine said on April 30, that the presidents of Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Slovenia has informed Kiev that they will not attend the Yalta meeting of Central and Eastern European leaders on May 11-12.
The boycott of the Yalta meeting reflects mounting concern over the hunger striking opposition leader and the treatment of her in jail. Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced last fall to seven years imprisonment for abusing power while she was in office. She has denied the allegations. (more…)
General, local and presidential elections will be held in Serbia on May 6. Single national lists will enable voters, for the first time, to cast ballots at any polling station in the country. In previous elections, Serbs could vote only at their registered place of residence. Some 70,000 Serbians have joined political parties since the beginning of this election year, taking the total over the 2-million barrier in the country of 7 million, reports balkaninsight.com. (more…)
Hans-Gunnar Adén (left) and Gunnar Hökmark
MEP Gunnar Hökmark who recently visited Azerbaijan in his role as chairman of the Policy Committee of Euronests Parliamentary Assembly and Hans-Gunnar Adén, former ambassador to Azerbaijan participated on Friday in a seminar on developments in Azerbaijan. An interested crowd of about 30 people had gathered to listen and ask questions.
Hans-Gunnar Adén started out referring to a number of international index that “classify” Azerbaijan as unfree and as a dictatorship. He noted that the Azerbaijani society rather go backwards than forwards in terms such as human rights. (more…)
