EurasiaNet Civil Society - Kazakhstan: Early Parliamentary Poll on the Cards

CIVIL SOCIETY

KAZAKHSTAN: EARLY PARLIAMENTARY POLL ON THE CARDS
Joanna Lillis 6/18/08

Mounting speculation that Kazakhstan will call an early parliamentary election was fuelled last week when an official from President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration dropped heavy hints that a fresh vote is expected as the country gears up to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.

In an interview with Liter newspaper published on June 11, presidential advisor Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said an early poll could be called in just over a year. "Since chairing the OSCE lies ahead for Kazakhstan and we intend to fulfill our obligations to the organization, I do not rule out early parliamentary elections in fall 2009," he said.

Yertysbayev left little doubt about the administration’s motivations: a desire to revamp the country’s one-party legislature before Kazakhstan takes the OSCE helm. "We have to come to Europe and show political pluralism in our country, represented in the country’s highest representative legislative body," he said.

Analysts agree that the OSCE chairmanship has given an impetus for political reform. "Clearly the driver for another pre-term election is Kazakhstan’s impending OSCE chairmanship for 2010," Rico Isaacs, a political scientist at the United Kingdom’s Oxford Brookes University who specializes in Kazakhstan, told EurasiaNet. "While strictly speaking there were no conditions attached for Kazakhstan to hold the chairmanship, there was an informal agreement the Kazakh government would reform some of the more restrictive aspects of its political system."

Constitutional reform pledged by officials to liberalize the political environment includes an overhaul of laws governing elections, political parties and the media.

The current lower house of parliament has been the subject of virulent controversy since being voted in last August, when Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan Party won every elected seat. Some are convinced that, aside from the damage to Kazakhstan’s international image, Nazarbayev’s administration has been unsettled by the consequences of having a one-party parliament in a state describing itself as a multi-party democracy.

"A unique new situation has now emerged, in which the authorities are imitating the political process and I think� the authorities themselves are uncomfortable with it being an imitation," Amirzhan Kosanov, deputy leader of the opposition National Social Democratic Party (NSDP), told Almaty’s Polyton discussion club in a March session devoted to political dialogue. "The authorities themselves understand that it is an artificial, forced, imitated process."

The 2007 election was called in the wake of far-reaching constitutional reform enacted last May, which included abolishing term limits for Nazarbayev. Those reforms -- which the administration said gave more clout to parliament, but critics said expanded the president’s already significant powers -- led to the dissolution of the legislature and snap elections, which OSCE monitors said failed to meet international standards.

Some are hopeful that a fresh vote would give the opposition a voice in parliament, but the real issue for opposition leaders is whether the authorities are serious about democratization or merely plan to tinker with legislation. "The question is what kind of laws they will be," the NSDP’s Kosanov told Polyton. "If there are normal laws, I think the Kazakhstani opposition. . . would definitely get into parliament."

Some observers doubt the administration’s good faith. "How mistaken were those who thought Kazakhstan on the threshold of its chairmanship would start playing by OSCE rules," journalist Sergei Duvanov commented in the Respublika weekly on June 13, arguing that an authoritarian regime is by nature incapable of liberalizing.

Presidential advisor Yertysbayev outlined some legal reforms under consideration, including lowering the threshold to enter the lower house from seven to four percent and exempting the party which comes second from that requirement, precluding the existence of a one-party parliament. A package of amendments is expected to be submitted to parliament in December.

"It is clear the government wishes to demonstrate willingness to move closer towards the democratic norms of Western governments," political scientist Isaacs said. "The government wants to show a degree of pluralism comparable to European governments and it can’t do that with the current one-party parliament. Therefore, the mooted constitutional changes will be designed to ensure at least one other party, possibly an opposition party, enters parliament. There is a sense that officials in the presidential administration would like to see a two-party system."

Already, Nazarbayev himself has started reaching out to the opposition. In a move that surprised many, he recently held a rare behind-the-scenes meeting with Azat Party chairman Bolat Abilov and another senior party functionary, Oraz Zhandosov. Though both sides have been tight-lipped about the agenda, the talks sparked conjecture that Zhandosov, an economist by profession, may be offered a government post. Zhandosov once served as deputy prime minister, but was fired when he became a founder of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan movement set up in 2001 to push for liberalization.

The years since Nazarbayev’s landslide re-election as president in 2005 have been difficult for government-opposition relations. Any tentative links that existed between the administration and opposition chiefs -- many of whom are former officials -- all but broke down after one of their leaders, Altynbek Sarsenbayev, was brutally murdered in 2006.

There are now indications that some sort of rapprochement is possible. "The authorities are not homogenous and the opposition is not homogenous," Rustem Kadyrzhanov, a professor from the Institute of Philosophy and Political Science, told the Polyton discussion on political dialogue.

"There are conservatives and reformers in the authorities, and the same goes for the opposition. There is the more radical wing and the more pragmatic one in the opposition... [Reformers and pragmatists can] come closer and then reaching a compromise is possible."

However, even if there are signs of a thaw in relations between the opposition and the administration, there is no indication that Nazarbayev intends to relax his grip on power.

Advisor Yertysbayev backed up the president’s own recent hint that he would use his prerogative to stay on after his term expires in 2012, telling Liter that Nazarbayev would rule "at least to 2017."

Analysts do not think he will face much of a challenge if he stands again. "Unless ill health forces his hand Nazarbayev will stand for re-election in 2012 and win by a huge majority," Isaacs said. "The opposition may put up a candidate again and Akorda [presidential palace] may encourage some minor figures to run so as to at least give the impression of a contest, but be in no doubt: Nazarbayev is not going anywhere anytime soon."

Editor�s Note: Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specializes in Central Asia.

The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues.

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