Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, came up with a confounding response January 31 to critics of the Central Asian nation’s democratization process: snap presidential elections.
As Kazakhstan ended its chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and passed the baton to Lithuania on January 13, Astana celebrated what it portrayed as a job well done during a challenging year.
One question is on practically everyone’s lips these days in Kazakhstan’s two main cities, Almaty and Astana: “Will he or won’t he?” They, of course, are thinking about Nursultan Nazarbayev, and whether he will, despite his own veto of a parliamentary resolution, end up becoming the country’s de-facto president-for-life.
Kazakhstan’s presidential election may be two years away, but political passions are already starting to build. The announcement by an opposition leader who happens to be from an ethnic minority group that he will challenge incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev in the 2012 vote has already provoked a storm of protest from nationalists.
