Kazakhstan: Astana's Proposed Political Reforms Draw Criticism

As the end of the year approaches, Kazakhstan is pushing through political reforms designed to meet commitments given to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ahead of Kazakhstan's 2010 OSCE chairmanship. Officials are billing the reforms as a major liberalization. But opposition leaders inside the Central Asian nation are deriding the proposed changes as a sham.

The most far-reaching reform is a new clause in electoral law ruling out a one-party parliament. The draft law retains the 7 percent threshold of votes to win seats but stipulates that, if only one party clears it, the party coming second will enter parliament irrespective of its vote totals. The 2007 election to the lower house (Mazhilis) saw only Nur Otan, led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, win seats after no other party cleared the threshold. This left Kazakhstan in the uncomfortable position of having a one-party parliament in a state professing a multi-party democracy. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The awkward situation was compounded when Nur Otan members won all 16 Senate seats that were up for election this October. According to a poll conducted by the Association of Sociologists and Political Scientists in August, published in the Respublika newspaper November 7, Nur Otan is Kazakhstan's most popular party but enjoys public support of just 30 percent of the population.

Prime Minister Karim Masimov opened a window on official thinking when he presided over a cabinet meeting that approved the reform package November 11. "The multi-party nature of the legislative, irrespective of electoral factors, will become a substantial factor which will play a significant role in the country's future political history," he said, fuelling criticism that the electorate is the last consideration on the administration's mind.

Opposition leaders said the new provision would not necessarily provide for a meaningful opposition presence in the legislature: the second parliamentary party could be a tame one, and -- if genuine -- may be powerless if it has just a handful of seats.

The draft laws "are not in line with promises made by the Kazakhstani authorities on bringing legislation into line with OSCE standards and are insufficient for genuine political modernization," the National Social Democratic Party (NSDP) said in a November 17 statement calling for public hearings into the plans.

The Azat party described the proposals as "a total profanity" in a statement the same day. "Changing nothing in essence, retaining all the excessively restrictive obstacles and prohibitions, in the best traditions of authoritarian demagoguery, the former shallow texts of the laws have been cosmetically spruced up," it said.

Opposition parties say many of their proposals were ignored, including tackling electoral falsification, ensuring opposition representation on electoral commissions, providing easy access to electoral lists, abolishing electronic voting and assuring equal campaigning conditions. They were particularly dismayed that a ban on parties' forming blocs to contest elections stands to remain in place.

Government critics were also disappointed with a separate package of amendments to the law on political parties, even though Culture and Information Minister Mukhtar Kul-Mukhammed insisted that some changes "almost word for word reflect the proposals of the Azat and NSDP parties." The government says it is liberalizing party registration rules and removing bureaucratic obstacles, including by lowering the number of members' signatures required to apply for registration from 50,000 to 40,000. The opposition had argued that 5,000 would be more appropriate.

The experience of Alga! is a telling example of the difficulties that some aspiring parties are encountering these days. This unregistered party grew out of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan movement, which originated in 2001 to lobby for reform only to be banned four years later. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. As its political successor, Alga! has been fighting unsuccessfully for registration, and leaders believe some planned changes to the law on political parties are directed against it, including a ban on using names and symbols of abolished parties and a time limit on potential parties operating as organizational committees while seeking registration.

Alga! said in a November 12 statement that guaranteeing two parties in parliament "is a decorative measure inasmuch as the mechanism for selecting and screening political parties on the part of the executive via the process of state registration remains."

The government also has unveiled planned changes to media legislation, including relaxing registration rules for media outlets, removing a requirement that journalists seek permission before publishing recorded comments, and abolishing a legal loophole in cases of rebuttal whereby journalists must prove the authenticity of a report, rather than their accusers proving it false.

Parts of the journalistic community were dissatisfied with the plans. "The general line of our authorities is to hold the media on as short a leash as possible," Sergey Duvanov, who has served a prison sentence for alleged rape that he says was inspired by his reporting, commented in Respublika on November 14. "It is clear why -- so they don't bite." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Duvanov was among signatories of a statement by 15 prominent reporters, chief editors and activists, issued November 25. "Depicting the cosmetic amendments proposed by the government as genuine liberalization is total disregard of common sense and honest journalism," it said.

In a report released December 1, Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed concern about restrictions on freedom of religion, expression and assembly, and called on Kazakhstan to conduct meaningful reform ahead of its OSCE chairmanship. "Kazakhstan has no time to lose in making necessary rights improvements," said Rachel Denber, HRW's Europe and Central Asia director. "Before it becomes chair of the OSCE in 2010, it should show its people and the world it is serious about reform."

"The new draft amendments are a small step forward, but do little to address core problems and offer no path to real change," Denber added.

The unveiled amendments sparked a new round of speculation over whether Kazakhstan will face fresh elections before its OSCE chairmanship, despite Nazarbayev ruling out the possibility of a new vote. Kazakhstan has never held an election judged free and fair by international observers. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. It is left for the administration to decide which is more uncomfortable: taking over the OSCE chair while having a one-party parliament, or holding an early election and facing the possibility of OSCE observers finding that it falls short of democratic standards.