As campaigning begins today for Kazakhstan’s presidential election, incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev faces only three weak challengers and is guaranteed a landslide victory. That’s going to make for a drab campaign season, especially since Nazarbayev himself is so sure of victory that he’s not campaigning. But activists are taking advantage of social media outlets to try and liven up the campaign.
The We Need Change! Facebook group, which was set up only two days ago, already has 232 members who are vigorously debating whether or not to boycott a vote that has a foregone conclusion.
Amid an opposition boycott of the election, Nazarbayev’s challengers are viewed mainly as stalking horses – as in the case of Senator Gani Kasymov, leader of the Party of Patriots, and Zhambyl Akhmetbekov, leader of the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan. The fourth candidate, Mels Eleusizov, heads the Tabigat environmental movement and is standing to put green issues on the agenda. Four other candidates failed to pass the registration process, and three stepped down of their own accord.
That narrow field may please some satirists who posted an ironic video on YouTube last month. Set to the Russian children’s song Antoshka, the video calls for tighter requirements for presidential candidates in order to reduce their numbers.
Top of the list is “a faultless command of Kazakh” – a sarcastic reference to controversy over some candidates being knocked out of the race after failing their obligatory language tests.
The proposed requirements also include “virtuoso” skills playing national instruments; horse and camel riding proficiency; singing and dancing skills (to a picture showing hippos dancing in tutus); and the ability to put up a yurt, slaughter a lamb, make the national dish of beshbarmak, and engage in traditional Kazakh wrestling.
“Who will be president?” the video ends, as images from The Matrix, The Terminator and Spiderman flash up. Not that anyone doubts the answer to that question.
Small wonder, perhaps, that reports are already emerging that some websites in Kazakhstan are being blocked: RFE/RL yesterday linked periodic accessibility problems for its site to the upcoming campaign. The harnessing of social media outlets is unlikely to influence the outcome of the election, but the airing of touchy issues could be uncomfortable for Astana in the run-up to the vote.
Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
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