I thought I would have a chance to add valuable information to Leila’s article on Neweurasia, Kazakhstan: Money, Kidnapping, Money, Power, Money…, when I heard that Rakhat Aliyev was being sent to Vienna as Ambassador to Austria and to head all Kazakhstan offices there. He has been there before, 5 years ago, and we will note that the OSCE is based in Vienna. Leila’s article is a fascinating read about a confusing set of events surrounding Nurbank, a bank widely believed to be connected to the Nazarbayev family, including the alleged kidnapping of first deputy chairman of the board–twice! He accused Rakhat Aliyev, the son-in-law of the President.

So now we know why Mr. Aliyev is leaving. On a second read of the article, I see that Leila did predict this: (more…)

Kazakhstan.NewEurasia published a link to Radio Azattyk’s review of the year from various prominent figures and an English translation here.

The opinions run the gamut from a member of Parliament showing he knows who butters his bread:The year has been very successful as it started with the inauguration of the president. My deep conviction is that there is only one politician in our country - Nursultan Nazarbaev. We are just helping him where we can.
to Andrey Chebotarev, head of the Alternativa think tank, who cited the tragedies of the year (and saw a different event as defining the year) but still saw room for hope: (more…)

Christopher Pala who writes for The New York Times and The Washington Post, has an article summarizing the situation around the OSCE leadership bid. It’s a good summary in a few words but the last paragraphs highlight an issue that I haven’t seen too much discussion of: Kazakhstan’s reaction if it is turned down.

European countries were at first skeptical of Kazakhstan’s bid, but many decided to support it on the grounds that the regime’s pro-democratic forces would be empowered by the chairmanship’s spotlight, while hard-liners would increase their influence if it were denied.
“There will be no more incentive for progress if Kazakhstan doesn’t get it,” said Yevgeny Zhovtis, the country’s leading human rights campaigner.
“If they do, I don’t say they will necessarily behave better, but the context will be better. If not, the anti-American forces will become stronger and more public, Kazakhstan will move closer to Russia, and repression will be worse.”
Another Western diplomat noted that the issue comes after Russia and its former colonies have been demanding efforts to make the OSCE human rights and election monitoring less intrusive — changes the West refuses to consider.
“If Kazakhstan is turned down, there’s a good chance the hard-line countries could make it harder for OSCE missions to operate in their countries, cooperate less with the election monitoring missions and refuse to pass the budget,” the Western diplomat said.

I’m not sure Kazakhstan should be given the chairmanship based purely on the argument that if they don’t, they’ll start to get real mean. It’s a bit akin to giving in to a child who threatends to have a temper tantrum (the metaphor may be unfair). But if there was reason to believe the chairmanship would be a kind of incentive to further freedoms, that would be reasonable. I’m not convinced it would for the same reasons that serious reforms have not been implemented (and I think Mr. Pala is unfair to say that “not even cosmetic reforms” have begun): Kazakhstan is much more interested in the prestige of the office than the meaning of the office. Kazakhstan is looking for a resume booster, something KazMunaiGas can put on its marketing brochures.

I think it is likely that a rejection will have a backlash along the lines of “Well, they’re too strict anyway, who needs all their rules? What does it take to make these intrusive Western countries happy?”. However, I do see a general trend toward more freedom and democracy (though I question what will happen in 2012 when a new President is elected), and while there are many different motives for that, from honest belief in democracy to a desire for prestige or the elusive Euro-standard, I suspect the tide is unstoppable especially as it is being accompanied by business alliances which will demand more openess. My two cents. What do you think?

Thanks to Nathan’s post here at Registan.net:

Kazakhstan’s bid for chairmanship of the OSCE in a statement at the meeting of the Permanent Council last week.

Tokayev’s statement and his closing statement

On the eve of Nazarbayev’s visit to the White House on Sept. 29th, speculation and analysis abounds as to what the issues on the table will be. The White House site has a nice list:

Democracy Promotion:
Kazakhstan Neweurasia has put up a slighting cartoon from The Economist. This is one big issue. And one that Nazarbayev may be asked by the reporters. Since it is not common for him to personally address reporters in Kazakhstan, nor for government officials to comment on anything except in formal, planned press-conferences, this is where the interesting bit occurs. We will remember when Condoleezza Rice visited Kazakhstan, and allegedly, Nazarbayev was stopped by her before he walked off the stage without taking questions. Rice also recounted that after the press conference, in which Andrea Koppel asked the President if he were a dictator, Nazarbayev asked her what he should do with such accusations. She advised that he answer them. So I am personally waiting to hear answers to questions about the Sarsenbayev trial, as well as a repeat of Ms. Koppel’s question.

One subheading here is the bid for the OSCE Presidency. Committees are busily meeting to put into place democratic reforms to make the bid more viable.

During the session, members of the state commission will discuss the questions regarding the work of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs concerning the course of promotion of Kazakhstan presidency in OSCE in 2009. The special representative of Kazakhstan in OSCE, the first Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Rakhat Aliyev will make a report on the topic.

One interesting tidbit from this is that Aliyev, also son-in-law of the President, in his report claimed that Kazakhstan is the sole candidate for the Presidency in 2009, though Reuters claims that Greece and Latvia are also putting forth bids.

Adam Kesher of Neweurasia covers the OSCE issue well.

Aliyev has recently been the source of some fun and mockery due to his article on whether Kazakhstan should be a monarchy of Kazakhstan. While he claims that constitutional monarchies are more democratic than republic—

[Aliyev] concluded, “We speak here solely and exclusively of a constitutional monarchy, a liberal monarchy, and however paradoxical it might sound, a democratic one, with developed and really independent institutions of power — parliament, government, independent judicial system based on the rule of law, and a responsible and independent press.
From Euraisanet.org

–many are laughing that he wants to be Prince! The opposition is noting that if one of them printed an article like this, they and the editor of the newspaper would be in jail!

Energy Diversification
This gets at the heart of the question of how much oil their really is in the Caspian Sea, whether Kazakhstan owns a lot of it, and whether they can get it out without turning the Caspian into an environmental disaster.

But it also turns on civilian nuclear energy, which Kazakhstan is developing. Politically, Kazakhstan, is attending the 50th International atomic energy session. And not only has the nation has not given up economic or diplomatic ties to Iran, in a stand of support one assumes for nations that want to develop nuclear power, but, Nazarbayev has addressed the comparison head on in his piece in Le Monde in July, My Advice to Iran. Essentially, he argues for the end of nuclear weapons, but for the world to leave nations alone in developing nuclear power.

Expanding Prosperity
Has been the subject of a number of high level visits from the US to Kazakhstan, especially in the Department of Agriculture.

The USA is the largest foreign investor in Kazakhstan. The total amount of investments into the economy of our country exceeds $12 billion that makes one third of all foreign investments into the economy of the Republic,
Quoted by Kazakhstan Today

And of course Kazakhstan wants help in becoming one of the 50 most competitive countries in the world and diversifying its economy. As much fun as is being made of the US for playing nice with oil-rich Kazakhstan, we note that Kazakhstan is being pretty nice to the investment-rich USA, as well.

Finally, of course the topic on everyone’s mind, except Bush and Nazarbayev: Borat and PR!. And enough said about that!

Some Primary Sources for your Evaluating Pleasure

• The OSCE preliminary findings and conclusions

  An interesting point not likely to picked up elsewhere:

  In observed polling stations with e-voting, a large majority of voters appeared to have favoured voting by paper ballot.

• The Institute for War and Peace Reporting Too Good to Be True?
• via kazakhstan.neweurasia.net, the Caspian Information Center report
  

  Second, the president has other natural advantages. The annual ten per cent increase in GDP achieved over the last five years, together with significantly rising living standards, a steady decrease in the number living below the poverty line, low levels of inflation and substantial increases in public sector pay and pensions during the present year, played a crucial part in shaping voter preferences in favour of the incumbent president.

  Even in a stable Western democracy, an economic record of this kind would present serious difficulties for any opposition.

• also thanks to kazakhstan.neweurasia.net, Criticism of the CIC report
  Strong words:

  “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.”

• Article about the US State Department reaction
  

  On the positive side….was the presence of five candidates on the ballot, including two opposition leaders, and greater transparency by election officials who published voter lists and other information on their website.

  On the downside were “undue restrictions on campaigning, harassment of opposition and independent media and media bias in favor of president Nazarbayev,”

The preliminary results are in:
91% of voters voted for Nursaltan Nazarbayev.
6.6% voted for Tuyakbai (For a Fair Kazakhstan)
0.38% voted for Yerasyl Abylkasymov (Communist Party)
1.65% for candidate Alikhan Baimenov (Ak Zhol)
and 0.32% for Mels Yeleusizov

77% of voters turned out.

The surprises are the high turnout, especially among youth and of course the sizeable victory.
Onalsyn Zhumabekov, chairman of the Kazakh Central Election Commission (CEC) declared the polls valid even though the OSCE held a press conference today in Almaty announcing that the elections did not meet OSCE standards:

While candidate registration was mostly inclusive and gave voters a choice, undue restrictions on campaigning, harassment of campaign staff and persistent and numerous cases of intimidation by the authorities, limited the possibility for a meaningful competition….Unauthorised persons interfering in polling stations, cases of multiple voting, ballot box stuffing and pressure on students to vote were observed during voting and during the count, observers saw tampering with result protocols and a wide range of procedural violations.

(more…)

neweurasia posted recently on this International Herald Tribune article raising a timeless question–how sincere is the government about fair elections? The article says it is all show, citing issues with opposition newspapers being seized, and the overall autocratic politics of former Soviet leaders; my own earlier post was presented as evidence that the registration is being taken quite seriously. And I will say that I have seen no evidence of dirty pool in general, though a fair amount of self-censorship. As was pointed out in neweurasia here Nazarbayev would appear to be more at risk of the appearance of election fraud due to high election results, than actual election fraud. The appearance of free elections is key to both international image in general and OSCE leadership in 2009.

To give an idea of how serious the Kazakhstan government is about these elections appearing to be free, we can look at the International Media Center’s report for the 14th to the 20th Novemeber. Authorized by the Ministry of Culture, Information, and Sport to monitor media coverage, the report covers objective statistics about coverage of each candidate. A sampling:

1. The Nazarbayev quotation index as presidential candidate is notably lower than
the number of commercials and references focusing on his activity as Head of
State. Abylkasymov and Yeleusizov are reviewed only as candidates. Tuyakbai
and Baimenov are mentioned in other connections also.
2. Most of the Nazarbayev credits are provided by non-governmental channels.
Tuyakbai’s and Yeleusizov’s coverage is approximately equal in the state
owned and non-governmental channels, while the activity of Abylkasymov and
Baimenov is featured somewhat more by the state television than the non-governmental
channels.

This is followed by actual statistics of time, source, and attitude (positive, negative, neutral). Needless to say Nazarbayev wins hands down for coverage–though this includes coverage of him as President. The Ministry makes frequent, publically broadcasted, announcements of these sorts of results. One wonders if it includes the free newspapers stuffed in mailboxes–most of which are pro-opposition.

This is all very good, (more…)