People pass by the poster of Incumbent Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, Kazakhstan. (Xinhua/Sadat)
Kazakhstan is gearing up for the snap presidential election that will take place on Sunday, April 3, 2011. No one doubts that the incumbent president Nursultan Nazarbayev will win, which will extend his presidency for another five years and give him a chance to consolidate his rule by grooming a successor (or so he hopes). Earlier this year, Nazarbayev rejected a proposed referendum that would place him in power until 2020, but instead called for a snap presidential poll, almost two years ahead of schedule. Some analysts see the early elections as a clever gambit to secure his grip on power while his popularity is soaring and thus avoid the instability and popular uprising that took place in the Middle East and North Africa.
Tomorrow, Nazarbayev is facing three challengers in the race for the presidential office, although all three openly support the incumbent president. They are Zhambyl Akhmetbekov of the pro-Nazarbaev Communist People’s Party; Mels Eleusizov, leader of the Tabighat (Nature) ecological union; and Patriots Party leader Ghani Kasymov. Real opposition is boycotting the elections whereas some opposition groups could not even consider participating because they had less than two months to prepare, which made it almost impossible for them to put together an election campaign.
Definitely bazaar, but Nazarbayev enjoys over a 90% approval rating among his countrymen and perhaps for that reason he did not even bother to go on a campaign trail. Nazarbayev claims that voters are familiar with his record, as well as his plans for the future, but pledged to encourage a transparent vote during the election. In 2010, Kazakhstan chaired the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the first former Soviet state to hold this position. Ironically, Kazakhstan has never held an election deemed free and fair by the OSCE, Europe’s main security, human rights and election monitoring body. In the run up to the elections, the OSCE in a mid-stage report about the situation in the country noted the absence of advertising and the unequal terms on which candidates were competing.
It is expected that more than 9 million voters (out of a total population of 16 million) are eligible to vote in 9,700 precincts across the country. According to Central Asia Online, data from the government-leaning Institute of Democracy in Astana claim that “80% of voters plan to vote April 3. Of those likely to vote, 91.2% said they would vote for Nazarbayev. More than 60% of those intending to vote were women, while about 40% of would-be voters were age 35 and under.” The publication also reports that more than 1,500 observers from the OSCE, European Parliament, CIS, Shanghai Co-operation Organization and 1,500 journalists will be monitoring or reporting on the election.
Meanwhile, Oksana Makushina, deputy editor at the Almaty-based opposition newspaper Golos Respubliki, reported on March 31 that their director Daniyar Moldashev has been missing for several days and she fears he was abducted. The publication is highly critical of the regime, running stories of corruption and scandal in the circles surrounding Nazarbayev. Yesterday, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reported that the Almaty city police have rejected reports that the head of an opposition publishing house has been abducted. Kazakh police’s involvement and statements in this matter definitely appear to be very strange.
Nazarbayev has been in office for more than 20 years – a rare example of concentrating power in one individual for such a long time even by post-Soviet standards rivaled only by Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Last year the Kazakh parliament granted Nazarbayev the title “Leader of the Nation,” which gives him the right to intervene in domestic, foreign, and security policy after he retires and grants him lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts committed during his rule.
For more background information about the Kazakh presidential election see my previous posts: Kazakh Presidential Election Campaign Kicks Off and Were Events in Egypt Echoed In Nazarbayev’s Decision To Call For A Snap Presidential Vote On April 3? Perhaps.
Watch a video about Nazarbayev’s home village of Shamalgan on Eurasianet.org
Read Nazarbayev’s Washington Post editorial here.
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