Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev Woos the West Ahead of Landslide Victory

Presidential candidates normally choose to campaign in elections on their home turf, but Kazakhstan's leader likes to stand out from the crowd. Disdaining the campaign trail at home as he heads for victory on April 3, Nursultan Nazarbayev is wooing a foreign audience instead.

Astana's PR machine’s been in overdrive ahead of the election: Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev hailing “Nazarbayev’s rich political and life experience, bright charisma, strategic vision of a creative leader, rare inner integrity and adherence to principles” to New Europe magazine was a particular gem.

The latest outpouring, in The Washington Post, is penned by Nazarbayev himself and trumpets, the headline says, “Kazakhstan's steady progress toward democracy.” 

“[W]e are progressing steadily on the path of democratic reform,” writes Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan for two decades -- critics say with an iron fist; supporters see it more as firm paternalism.

The progress Nazarbayev discerns isn’t always visible to the naked eye. Political reforms of recent years have included exempting Nazarbayev personally from constitutional term limits (otherwise he wouldn’t have been standing in Sunday’s election at all) and granting him the title of Leader of the Nation, with special powers and privileges including the threat of jail for anyone who ventures to criticize the esteemed ruler.

All elected seats in the lower house of parliament are held by Nazarbayev’s own party, Nur Otan, and the upper house is stuffed with sycophantic supporters.

Yet, says Nazarbayev, democracy wasn’t built in a day. “It took the great democracies of the world centuries to develop,” he wrote. “We are not going to become a fully developed democracy overnight.”

There’s good news too: Kazakhstan’s “road to democracy is irreversible,” Nazarbayev adds, and he’s even pledging that his administration’s “determined to pick up the pace of reform.”

That’s a vague pledge also heard recently from presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev in another Western media eulogy of Nazarbayev -- but where are the specifics? A glance at recent reforms might inspire Kazakhstan’s civil society with more apprehension than hope.

This message isn’t aimed at them, though -- it’s for the West, and it’s up to Western governments whether they swoon at these fine words or take a long hard look at reality on the ground.