Even though there is no danger of independent parties getting into parliament, authorities fear renewed protests.

Georgia’s opposition has formed a united front for the upcoming parliamentary vote, as it attempts to regain its footing after the ruling party got a boost from its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Three days after winning some 71 percent of the vote in a snap presidential election in which "significant irregularities" were noted by a leading international election monitor, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev was sworn in as Kazakhstan's second president on June 12, 2019.

Hundreds of Kazakhs came into the streets of the two capitals and all other major cities of that country to demand a credit amnesty, a reversal of privatization into the hands of foreigners, and the liberation of political prisoners, the broadest such wave of protests in years and one that reflects the impact of the pandemic there.

 But the riot police seem to have arrived first

The squabbling is good news for a regime that relentlessly tries to divide and conquer the opposition. 

Allow Protests; Stop Persecuting Critics

If it walks like a president, talks like a president, and has powers on par with a president…

Pensioner Ernazar Perneev had just arrived at Nauryz Square in Kazakhstan's southern city of Shymkent on October 26 when he was confronted by a representative from the mayor's office.