Despite Long Odds, Opposition Leader Steps Up Presidential Campaign

With just days to go until Kazakhstan's presidential election, all signs suggest that the incumbent, Nursultan Nazarbayev, should handily win another seven-year term. Nevertheless, the leading opposition candidate, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, is stepping up his campaign by unveiling a blueprint for social justice.

Nazarbayev is facing four challengers in the December 4 election. In a poll published November 21 by the KazRating agency, Nazarbayev enjoyed 76 percent support -- up about 5 percent since the start of the presidential campaign in October. Tuyakbai, the nominee of the For a Fair Kazakhstan Movement, is generally recognized as Nazarbayev's closest challenger. The other candidates include Alikhan Baimenov, leader of a splinter faction of the opposition Ak Zhol Party, Mels Eleusizov, an environmental activist, and Erasyl Abylkasymov, leader of the Communist People's Party.

The campaign has been notably low-key, amid the widely held expectation that Nazarbayev will retain the presidency. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In the last few days, however, Tuyakbai has made several political moves in an attempt to boost is voter appeal. For example, he announced that, if elected, he would forge a cabinet comprising a wide spectrum of opposition leaders, including Bulat Abilov, Oraz Jandosov, and Galymzhan Zhakiyanov. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

On November 29, Tuyakbai, a former political ally of Nazarbayev's who split with the president following the 2004 parliamentary elections, unveiled a populist political platform designed to reduce poverty. Kazakhstan, with its abundance of natural resources, possesses Central Asia's most robust economy. The country recorded 9.4 percent growth in GDP in 2004, and forecasts expect the economy to keep growing at such a pace for the foreseeable future. At the same time, wealth is unevenly distributed, meaning a large number of citizens live near the poverty line.

During a nationally televised campaign address, Tuyakbai stated that curtailing official corruption was needed to give anti-poverty measures a chance to take root. He went on to say that he would advocate a program under which 50 percent of the profits from the extraction of natural resources, including oil, gas and minerals, would be deposited in a general fund for redistribution to citizens. In addition, Tuyakbai indicated that some revisions in the state's privatization process might be necessary.

Some political scientists suggested that Tuyakbai may have made a serious political miscalculation in raising the possibility of changes in the country's privatization scheme. Such a move is likely to drive Kazakhstan's growing number of entrepreneurs firmly into Nazarbayev's camp. One of the main themes of the president's campaign has been a pledge to encourage entrepreneurial activity.

Meanwhile, Nazarbayev and his political allies now appear to be focusing on courting international public opinion. Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan's elections, like those of its neighbors in Central Asia and the Caucasus, have been marred by allegations of irregularities. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Official are now working hard to change Kazakhstan's image. During a visit to Moscow on November 30, for example, Kazakhstani Foreign Minister Kasymzhomort Tokayev vowed that the presidential election will be the country's cleanest in its history.

On November 25, Khabar television reported that Nazarbayev had ordered government officials to take measures to promote election transparency. Regional governors had been given "strict instructions ... not to let the president down, Presidential aide Yermukhamet Yertysbayev told Khabar. "He [Nazarbayev] said openly: