•  astana
• Tuesday, April 05, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Kazakhstan's nine million registered voters went to the polls Apr. 3. Incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev is not expected to lose. Observers have already given the country's election commission poor marks for allowing a questionable selection procedure through which three political lightweights are up against 'Papa' - as Nazarbayev is affectionately known.

A fragmented opposition have not put forward any candidates. Unwilling or unable to mount a serious challenge through Egyptian style public protest they have tried to discredit the ageing strongman by encouraging voters to boycott the poll.

But Nazarbayev does not seem concerned. On Jan. 31, the sprightly 70-year-old called the new presidential election with his seated ministers gazing at him from their ornate golden chairs in Astana's Ak Orda palace — an oversized White House with a dome and mast as high as the building is tall.

'As the first democratically elected president, proceeding exclusively from the highest interests of the country, I have made the decision not to hold a referendum,' he said in a televised address. '(Taking) into account the will of the people and the faithfulness to democratic principles, I am proposing to hold an early presidential poll, despite the fact that this reduces my term of office by almost two years.'

It was hard for Kazakh watchers not to ponder whether Kazakhstan's 'Leader of the Nation' (a title for life approved by his rubber-stamp parliament that makes him immune from prosecution) had Cairo on his mind. A planned referendum on dropping term limits to extend his rule until 2020 had earlier been criticised by the European Union and United States. Certainly the president seemed to be saying this was a more democratic gesture.

The Kazakh president, along with his Central Asian counterparts in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, has absolute authority. His country suffers from systemic corruption with massive inequalities between rich and poor. There is no independent judiciary, and the mass media either self-censors or is controlled by the state. Freedom of assembly is curtailed, and genuine opposition movements are suppressed or banned.

Credible international monitors like the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have never certified an election in the oil-rich nation free or fair. Kazakhstan's fragmented opposition believes the country deserves the same wave of change that could precipitate democracy in the Middle East.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service