Voice of Democracy
Published by Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation · Washington, D.C. ·Sept. 15, 2004

THE DEMOCRACY THREAT -- Could President Nursultan Nazarbayev be hoisted on his own petard? Is he running the risk of raising expectations beyond where he's willing to deliver? Those are some of the questions being asked in advance of Sunday's elections for the lower house of Kazakhstan's parliament. The Majilis has generally been the dictator's puppet, kept on a short string and dancing to his tunes, but he's been making promises lately of adopting democratic reforms, and there is a danger that some people might take him seriously. Of course, he's always talked that way, even bought ads in American newspapers and solicited testimonials from easily purchased American politicians claiming Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan is a thriving democracy. It's more like a kleptocracy, with the president himself under investigation in Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere for money laundering, bribery and various other corruption charges. What makes this time a little bit different is that he wants membership in the World Trade Organization, to be elected chair of the OSCE and to be accepted in Western capitals as more than the corrupt dictator of a country floating on a sea of oil. Agence France Presse reports "he is under particular pressure from the United States, a leading investor in the country's major Caspian Sea oil reserves." Sounds good, but it remains to be seen whether anyone, the United States included, is willing to put demands for democracy ahead of demands for oil. Without strong Western backing, members of parliament have little hope of standing up to their dictator, who is reportedly the seventh wealthiest man in the world -- a distinction he didn't achieve on his state salary. http://www.afp.com/english/home/

'ELECTIONS NOT JUST OR FAIR' -- The democratic forces of Kazakhstan charge the parliamentary elections scheduled for Sunday "have been orchestrated and manipulated by the authorities (and)cannot be considered fair." But they have dropped threats to boycott the voting and now say they do intend to participate, although reluctantly. They accused the election authorities of "violations of legal procedures, unashamed and cynical ignoring of the democratic public demands." Access to ballots and to the media have been strictly limited for parties not backing the Nazarbayev regime, charged Ak Zhol party, the Communist Party and the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, and not just in parliamentary voting but in state and local elections as well. Rules, enforcement, news coverage, advertising access and participation in televised debates all have been skewed to favor the Otan and Asar parties, run respectively by the dictator and his favorite daughter, they charge. The fairness and reliability of the country's newly installed electronic voting system has been seriously challenged by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as the opposition parties inside the country. OSCE has been urging the government to make sure the elections are free and fair, and charges that the parties controlled by Nazarbayev and his daughter, Otan and Asar, "have a virtual monopoly on prominent outdoor advertising sites." The family parties also are believed to be getting government subsidized television advertising as well -- no coincidence since daddy controls the government and daughter controls the state's largest media outlets. It is expected that the family parties will control the next parliament. The democratic parties have dropped threats to boycott the voting and "intend to observe the elections on a large scale," but warn that if the election authorities "start to falsify the voting results once again," the democratic movement reserves the right to call on the Kazakh public and international community to declare the resulting parliament illegitimate. http://www.interfax-news.com/, http://www.forumkz.org/kazakhstan.htm

CRITICS AND PIGS BEWARE -- Dariga Nazarbayeva denies any ambitions to succeed her father as president of Kazakhstan, and that may be just as well considering her opinion of Kazakhs who criticize her singing. The aspiring mezzo soprano has branded her critics "snobs and skeptics," adding, "Pigs grunt about everything and nothing." Criticizing the dictator's daughter can be risky business in a country where her ultra-sensitive daddy puts people in jail for insulting him and his family, and where Dariga, 40, is the second most powerful person in the Central Asian republic. She heads the largest media conglomerate in the country, the second largest political party, an influential political think tank and the Kazakh Federation of Sport Gymnastics. She has "ruthlessly" exploited her power, reports the Scotsman. Her party, Asar, which many consider to be a virtual clone of her father's Otan party, is poised to come in first or second in Sunday's voting for parliament, and she could emerge as the next speaker of the Majilis, and well on her way to succeeding her father. If that happens, will she be singing her speeches? Dariga says, "I simply love to sing very much," and Ian Mather, the Scotsman's diplomatic correspondent, noted that "in today's Kazakhstan anyone who criticizes her singing or any other of her activities is unlikely to do their own career much good." http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1071062004

JOIN OR FLUNK, STUDENTS TOLD -- Several political parties are pressuring university administrators to force students to join them and campaign on their campuses for their candidates in the Sept. 19 parliamentary election, reports the Kazakh newspaper Panorama. It cited a report by The Kazakh Youth Information Service (KYIS) stating that parties with "access to the administrative resources of some universities have forced students to join their ranks and hold their own campaigns, thereby influencing young people's electoral preferences." Students at one university complained that during summer exams the campus administration "did not allow us to pass exams without the party membership card of the political parties, of which the administration staff were members." http://www.panorama.Kazakhstan/, http://news.bbc.co.uk/

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