PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
H.E. BOLAT NURGALIYEV
AMBASSADOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN
BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

I would like to thank the Commission and Chairman Christopher Smith for inviting me to share with you Kazakhstan's approach to democracy and the progress of our democratization efforts.

As an OSCE member state, Kazakhstan takes seriously its obligations to meet the OSCE standards as we continue our integration into the global democratic community united by a shared comment to democratic principles, the free market, and international cooperation. We also value our close democratic and economic partnership with the United States government.

We have benefited from joint efforts in such areas as the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the development of multiple transit routes for Caspian energy, and the promotion of a favorable investment climate for American companies involved in a wide variety of projects in Kazakhstan. Just as President Nursultan Nazarbayev was honored to participate in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council meeting on NATO's 50th Anniversary less than two weeks ago, we also take great pride in our seven-year-old membership in the OSCE. For a young democracy like ours, which lacks a history of established democratic institutions, participation in the OSCE is particularly important. It provides access to the collective expertise of some of the world's older, more experienced democracies.

As we pursue our own road to democracy, the OSCE functions as a valuable resource. For example, this year, we are implementing an entirely new proportional representation system in the October election of the lower chamber of Parliament - the Majilis - the first time such a system has been used in Central Asia. Since proportional representation systems operate differently in various countries, we have benefited from the OSCE's input and advice in designing the details of our own formula.

Our close and effective interaction with the OSCE has been further strengthened with the January opening of the OSCE branch office in Almaty and the Memorandum of Understanding signed in December 1998. This lays the groundwork for detailed technical assistance through the ODIH in areas ranging from election assistance, to promoting the participation of women in politics, to building a dialogue on civil society - which all reflect and reinforce the bold and comprehensive seven-point democratization plan announced by President Nutsultan Nazarbayev last September. Six specific technical assistance seminars by the ODIHR are planned for 1999 in Kazakhstan, some of which are already underway. We continue to rely on and learn from the OSCE, and benefit from its technical expertise, even while we may not agree on every issue, nor accept each and every specific suggestion as we design and create our own path to democracy.

We believe that our accomplishments in building a democracy from the ground up these past seven years provides solid evidence of our openness to learn from other democracies with longer histories and our commitment to strengthen our still-young political and social democratic institutions.
I would like now to review some of our achievements in democratization and protecting human rights since our independence in 1991, the obstacles we have had to overcome, and our current democratization initiatives.

I. Kazakhstan's Independence and its Soviet Legacy

When Kazakhstan became independent a little over seven years ago, we inherited troublesome legacies from the Soviet system, including:

- An exhausted, inefficient economy with an anachronistic infrastructure from a top-down, command system;
- The absence of any democratic institutions, resulting from centuries of subjugation by dictatorships;
- The world' s fourth largest nuclear arsenal; and,
- two enormous environmental disasters - the desiccation of the Aral Sea and the 470 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk - both of which inflicted on our people an unprecedented level of health and environmental damage.There was no experience with political accommodation and compromise, no understanding how a free press functioned or how opposing political views and parties could coexist. We lacked a strong business ethic that promoted individual initiative and entrepreneurial growth and a vibrant civil society. We have had to construct every reform from the ground up.
In implementing our reform efforts, we have been guided by two basic principles:
- That economic and political reform must proceed together simultaneously; and
- That the pace of change must be deliberate - and not abrupt.

II. Kazakhstan's Achievements in Seven Years

With a complex ethnic dynamic of over 100 nationalities, our first priority has been to maintain harmony among all our peoples to create an environment in which democracy has been able to take root and flourish. Sadly, we know from the conflicts in Kosovo and in other parts of the world of the terrible dangers and potentially violent consequences of inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts. We have worked hard to avoid ethnic clashes by our commitment to ensure freedom of religion for all our diverse peoples--whether they practice Islam, Orthodoxy, Judaism or another faith. We have ensured that our sizable ethnic communities enjoy full rights by basing citizenship solely on residency and granting the Russian language Constitutional status.

This ethnic harmony is perhaps our proudest achievement. It is the underpinning of all that we have been able to accomplish. And we will be vigilant in ensuring that it continues.
Other significant accomplishments in the first seven years of independence have included:

- Becoming the first state in the world to completely eliminate a nuclear arsenal - a courageous step we were able to take in partnership with the US with some $172 million in assistance allocated under Congress' Nunn-Lugar legislation.- Establishing Kazakhstan as a bulwark of moderation and stability, an active participant in the war against forces of extremism of all kinds, whether religious fundamentalism or political terrorism.

- Conducting Kazakhstan's first contested presidential election in January with 4 candidates.

- Making the transition from a single state-sanctioned political party to a multi-party democracy with the registration now of fourteen diverse political parties. - Promoting a vibrant civil society with over 2,000 NGOs - the most in Central Asia.

- Creating a market economy with an extensive privatization program, reduction in inflation from 3000 percent to below 10 percent, and one of the region's leaders in attracting direct foreign investment;

- Developing our vast energy resources and working with the United States and other countries to provide a network of multiple transport routes.

These achievements have laid the groundwork for a continued, ambitious effort to further democratize our politics and open our society. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has outlined a bold and detailed program of democratization with seven major objectives:

- To open up the electoral process;
- To encourage the formation of independent political parties;
- To expand powers of Parliament;
- To foster the growth of civil society;
- To deepen the independence of the Judiciary;
- To ensure freedom of the Press;
- To enable women to become fully engaged participants in political, social and economic life.
Under this program, we have taken the following important steps related to electoral issues:
- We have responded promptly to the OSCE recommendation to reduce candidate filing fees for president and parliament by 90% and 50% respectively.
- We have encouraged the participation of independent election observers by precisely defining their rights in the proposed election law.
- The proposed election law also provides that the members of district-level election commissions will be appointed by the Central Election Commission at the recommendation of the local governor.
We are also acting in other important areas, including:
- Improving legislation on NGOs to make it easier for them to operate and adopting a new charities law to allow NGOs to receive private funding;
- Expanding economic opportunities for women through new entrepreneurship loan programs; and
- Mounting an aggressive attack, on corruption under tough new anti- corruption legislation enacted last year. HI. The Significance of 1999 for Continued Democratization
Nothing will be as critical to our democratization efforts as the operation of multiple independent political parties and we anticipate that 1999 will mark a major step forward in their development.

In October we will hold elections to the Parliament. With 10 new seats in the Majilis (out of 77) to be selected by national party vote under our new system of proportional representation, political parties registered in Kazakhstan have a powerful incentive to campaign actively. In 2000 we will also begin moving toward the direct election of governors, Akims.

To fully equip our 14 registered political parties with the necessary tools to compete and campaign, the Central Election Commission (CEC) will be providing them with training programs and technical assistance. The CEC will also ensure that domestic as well as international observers fully participate in the election.

We welcome the assistance of the OSCE (in addition to NDI, IFES and other international organizations) to help train our new political parties in organizing and conducting national campaigns. In addition, we expect that the OSCE will send an extensive monitoring team to observe the October Majilis election. We are inviting other international organizations to provide observers to confirm that the election is an example of free and fair and open balloting. This will be in addition to our domestic observers.

In January's Presidential election we had over 6,000 observers who noted only limited irregularities. The Central Election Commission will also repeat the successful voter education program it introduced in the January Presidential election, which was commended by the OSCE 1999 Election Assessment Mission. The Mission also noted that the CEC had redesigned ballots and improved protocols for vote recording based on the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations.

There are other ways that international NGOs are serving as vital participants in our democratization process. With the help of IFES, for example, we will be introducing a civic education program in the secondary schools to help educate future generations to the opportunities and responsibilities that go with democracy. This is an essential part of the difficult process of building a democracy where there are no historical roots or antecedents.

We are committed to build on our already strong record of civil society which dates back to the emergence of one of the Soviet Union's first NGOs, Nevada-Semipalatinsk, formed in 1987 as a successful lobby against Soviet nuclear testing. It has now become the basis of one of our fourteen political parties. We expect new legislation to be enacted soon to streamline and simplify the NGO registration process. Similarly, a new charities law will make it easier for NGOs to receive private funding, so that all Kazakhstanis can benefit from the activities of a wide variety of NGOs. We are expanding our efforts to eliminate all vestiges of discrimination against women and provide full gender equality.IV. Conclusion In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I wish to emphasize that our commitment to both the flee market and democracy is unwavering. While some nations have responded to the economic crises that has swept the region by slowing their reform efforts, Kazakhstan has remained steadfast. We believe that economic and political reform must proceed simultaneously, and that one can not succeed without the other.

The Government of Kazakhstan recognizes that much remains to be done and that we have long way to go, and that like every other democracy, we still have imperfections. Our democracy is, and will continue to be, a work in progress for many years to come. But, as President Nursultan Nazarbayev has said recently in Washington, "we have only just begun the journey that your Founding Fathers embarked on over 200 years ago. Measured by any objective historical standard, the pace of our development and our transformation to date has been truly extraordinary".

I look forward to continuing our dialogue with you and now welcome your questions.

Thank You.