Excerpts from report by Kazakh Khabar TV on 16th August
Today [16th August] is the last day for the registration of
candidates to the Senate [upper house - scheduled for 17th
September] of [Kazakh] parliament. To be more precise, the
registration process will end at 2400 gmt Almaty time [1700
gmt]. A total of 33 candidates for the Senate were registered
by midday today. However, full details will be given tomorrow,
the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission [CEC], Zagipa
Baliyeva, said.

Another news about the elections: the forthcoming
[parliamentary] elections have one difference [from the
previous ones]. As we have reported previously, the OSCE placed
an order with BBC to prepare special video films aimed at
improving the activity of Kazakhstan's electorate. The CEC of
Kazakhstan also interefered in this. Today, it was announced
that the video films were now ready and they would be broadcast
on TV channels in the next few days.

[Correspondent, over video of OSCE mission in Kazakhstan
and the chairman of the CEC, Zagipa Baliyeva, watching video
films and giving a news conference] The main organizer of this
work is the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
[ODIHR] at the OSCE and the OSCE financed it. The programme
costs 70,000 dollars. The CEC of Kazakhstan also helped it with
financing. The world renowned BBC company fulfilled the order.
The leader of OSCE mission in our country, Ulrich Schenning,
believes that these films will certainly influence the
electorate. The main purpose is not only improvement of voters'
activity but also to remind them of their responsibility for
these measures, the Europeans say [meaning OSCE
representatives]. Now, about the video films which will not
fail to influence people. There are ten of them. The copies in
Kazakh language will arrive soon with a good translation [into
Kazakh].

[passage omitted: brief description of videos]

As regards one video film, in which there was not a single
word in Kazakh, the organizers tried to explain that with
technical difficulties. One can hardly believe that. In
general, judging by the meaningful video films, the people
present said that they had not ploughed the sand. The chairman
of the CEC said the video film will be broadcast on TV channels
. Zagipa Baliyeva said the CEC and OSCE are doing a great
together and added that there will be countries in the future
which will try to imitate Kazakhstan's election system and
election laws and these days are not far away.

Source: Khabar TV, Almaty, in Kazakh 1000 gmt 16 Aug 99
BBC Mon CAU 160899/** AJBA/QU