By empty (12/1/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Baku mayor\'s office issued a statement on 1 December calling on the opposition to move their planned 3 December demonstration from the center of the city to a sports facility outside of the capital. The mayor\'s office explained that such a move is necessary to ensure public order, citing the 1 December statement by Baku police chief Maharram Aliyev in which he charged that participants in the 26 November opposition demonstration committed \"illegal acts, disrupted public order and called for violence and civic disobedience.\"(Turan) .

By empty (12/1/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Speaking during a visit to Ukraine, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on 1 December that he ruled out any suggestion of a Georgian withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He explained that although he was closely following a recent discussion of the subject in the Georgian parliament, he added that \"personally, I am against Georgia\'s withdrawal from the Commonwealth.\" But Saakashvili did stress that \"the CIS should be reformed and, instead of adopting declarations that are forgotten in a couple of days, it should work out concrete and real matters,\" and added that \"CIS countries should have freedom of action.

By empty (12/1/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, the presidential candidate of the opposition bloc For a Just Kazakhstan, told AFP in a 1 December interview that a victory for incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbaev in the country\'s 4 December presidential election will push Kazakhstan toward dictatorship. Warning that \"the political authorities in our country are going more and more toward authoritarianism and dictatorship,\" Tuyakbai said that if Nazarbaev is not stopped on 4 December, \"In seven years\' time we will be one of the worst countries in the world, like North Korea or Turkmenistan.\" The opposition candidate said that he felt he could force a run-off with Nazarbaev in an honest election, but expressed scant faith that the ballot will be fair.