The preparations for April’s early presidential election in Kazakhstan, billed by Astana as the incumbent president’s impromptu reaction to a shelved bid to extend his rule through referendum, are proceeding at such breakneck speed that skeptics are wondering just how spontaneous this snap election actually is.
Within days of Nursultan Nazarbayev proposing an early election, Astana’s legal eagles managed to rewrite the constitution and a couple of laws to grant the president the right to call a snap vote, and parliament hurriedly voted the changes in.
Then, on February 11, within hours of accepting the nomination of his party, Nur Otan, to stand as its candidate, Nazarbayev managed not only to put together the paperwork to submit his bid to the Central Electoral Commission but also to pass the Kazakh-language test in which candidates must make the grade to be eligible for the presidency – all in one day. That’s certainly fast work on the part of the no doubt flustered officials at the electoral commission and the linguistic commission that administers the language exam.
Nazarbayev may have been prepared to move fast, but the opposition certainly wasn’t, and it’s crying foul. “We’re not going to take part in this spectacle!” Bolat Abilov, co-leader of OSDP Azat said, as the party declared a boycott of the vote.
Even as he was graciously accepting his party’s nomination, Nazarbayev was already presenting his election manifesto under the catchy slogan “Let’s Build Our Future Together!”
It’s not all smoke and mirrors, though: As well as pointing to Kazakhstan’s undisputed economic and social achievements under his rule, Nazarbayev set out some very specific objectives for the next five-year term and beyond, with plenty of facts and figures to back them up.
Few doubt Nazarbayev’s ability to win, or even to fulfill most of his election pledges – but there were a few words in his speech that could come back to haunt him: “We will do everything that depends on us so that these elections are free and fair.”
In its 20 years of independence, Kazakhstan has never held an election judged so by credible international observers. If it did this time, that’d really be an achievement for Nazarbayev to crow about – but it’s hardly likely, with no real opposition candidates standing.
Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
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