British team accused of Kazakh
poll whitewash
From Jeremy Page in Moscow
A TEAM of British politicians and academics, led
by Lord Parkinson, was accused yesterday of whitewashing a rigged election in the oil-rich
Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan.
The incumbent, President Nazarbayev, won a third
seven-year term as leader of the former Soviet nation with 91 per cent of the vote,
according to preliminary results.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), which sent 460 observers, said that the election did not meet international
democratic standards. Flaws included restrictions on campaigning, interference at polling
stations, multiple voting, pressure on students to vote, media bias and restrictions on
freedom of expression, it said.
“There was harassment, intimidation and
detentions of campaign staff and supporters of opposition candidates, including cases of
beatings of campaign staff,” said the OSCE mission, led by Bruce George, the British
Labour MP.
But Lord Parkinson’s seven-strong team,
calling itself a “British parliamentary group”, pre-empted the OSCE report with a much
more positive assessment. “The presidential election of 4 December represents a very
significant advance,” said the report by his team, which also included Peter Lilley, the
former Tory Trade Secretary. “The election was genuinely competitive and voters were
given a real choice between candidates. We found no reason to doubt the integrity of the
election process.”
One of the main opposition leaders accused the
team of toning down its criticism because of Britain’s interests in Kazakhstan, which
has vast reserves of oil and gas. “They are lying,” Oraz Zhandosov, a former Finance
Minister and co-leader of the Naghyz Ak Zhol party, told The Times. “This must have been funded by a large
energy company or a front for the Kazakh Government.”
Russian-language media reported the team’s
conclusions as though it was an official observer mission from the British Parliament. The
group was in fact organised by the Caspian Information Centre, which describes itself as a
London-based non-profit think-tank.
Its website says that it is supported by a
growing number of contributors who are developing stakes in Kazakhstan’s international
businesses.
The centre’s director and sole employee,
Gerald Frost, initially told The Times that it
had a single private corporate sponsor, but refused to identify it. He later named it as
Typhoon Media International, based in Hong Kong, but denied it had interests in
Kazakhstan. Its website says Typhoon is “best known for working on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and other gameshows
in the Asia-Pacific region”.
John Mann, the Labour head of Britain’s
all-party parliamentary group on Kazakhstan, claimed Lord Parkinson’s team, which
arrived a few days before the election, was designed to discredit the OSCE mission.
“This is like the old Soviet Union, where people go a couple of days before the vote and
then say everything was brilliant immediately afterwards,” he said. “One has to
question their motives and ask what their agenda is and who is paying.”
Mr Lilley said he did not know who had paid for
his trip. “Because I don’t, I cannot mould my opinions to fit someone’s agenda,”
he said. “I’m an objective politician and my views are my own.” He said it was good
that there were alternative voices to the OSCE. “You might call that a whitewash, but I
don’t think it is.”
OBSERVERS UNDER ATTACK
Peter Lilley Former Secretary of State for Trade
and Industry, then Social Security, then Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party
Lord (Cecil) Parkinson Former MP, Secretary of
State for Trade and Industry and Conservative Party chairman
Gerald Frost Former head of Thatcherite Centre
for Policy Studies and adviser to Conservative ministers
Nirj Deva MEP Conservative MP 1992-1997
Professor Kenneth Minogue Conservative- leaning
political science professor at the LSE
Professor Dennis O’Keeffe Social science
professor at University of Buckingham, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic
Affairs and editor of the Salisbury Review
Lord Kilclooney (John D Taylor) Former MP for
Strangford and Deputy Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party; chairman of Alpha Newspaper
Group
“The Times”, December 6, 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1905692,00.html
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