Translated material
Astana is ready to listen to Europe
Kazakh television edits Nazarbayev
In Kazakhstan, the formation of the lower house of parliament, the Mazhilis, ended yesterday. According to the amendments to the constitution adopted in May of this year, the Majilis now consists of 107 deputies, 98 of whom are elected during elections held according to the proportional system, that is, according to the lists of political parties. Another nine deputies are elected by the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan.The elections, held on August 18, ended with the victory of the presidential party Nur Otan, which gave it all 98 mandates. And yesterday, at the meeting of the 13th session of the assembly, the holders of the remaining nine deputy mandates became known. There were no surprises, they were all nine candidates that were nominated on August 6 at a meeting of the Assembly Council - Uyghur Marat Akhmadiev, Ukrainian Valery Vinichenko, German Egor Kapel, Russian Raisa Polishchuk, Belarusian Leonid Pitalenko, Kazakh Kairat Sadvakasov, Uzbek Ruzakul Kalmuratov, Balkar Lyudmila Khachieva and Korean Viktor Tsoi. All of them are formally considered non-party, which will allow the parliament to be considered not fully staffed by “Nurotanites.”
True, many legal scholars both inside and outside Kazakhstan criticize the election of deputies through the assembly, believing that the mechanism for nominating candidates is not transparent. And most importantly, it turns out that some categories of citizens have, as it were, two votes, participating first in general elections, and then, as representatives of national minorities, also through the assembly. Representatives of the authorities respond with references to Art. 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees national minorities their rights.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke at the assembly meeting. The head of state succinctly assessed the results of the elections, which led to the Mazhilis becoming a one-party one. “In all elections there are winners and losers. But in the present conditions, I believe that all Kazakhstanis won,” Nazarbayev said. “The choice of the Kazakh people confirmed the correctness of the course being pursued, which is leading Kazakhstan to prosperity and peace.”
True, not “all Kazakhstanis” consider themselves to be winners. For example, the Opposition Social Democratic Party (OSDP) intends to recognize the past elections as invalid and raise the issue of holding members of election commissions and other officials accountable. In the coming days, numerous lawsuits will be filed in the country's courts regarding violations during the elections. NSDP leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay was “stunned” by the election results, in which his party, according to official data, received 4.62% of the vote. The Social Democrats said they expected to get up to 30%.
The Ak Zhol party, whose leaders consider themselves to be in the middle of the Kazakh political spectrum, somewhere between the government and the opposition, did not recognize the election results. “Akzhol members” also did not enter parliament, receiving slightly more than 3% of the votes.
Yesterday, during a meeting of a group of Russian journalists with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Masimov, he expressed regret that the opposition would not be represented in parliament. In this regard, the Vremya Novostey correspondent noted that the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan could, if desired, eliminate this shortcoming by electing at least one oppositionist to its list. Mr. Masimov responded with a smile and remarked: “Yes, she could, but she didn’t do it.” And then, not without sadness, he noted: “We will have to have a one-party parliament for the next five years.” Your correspondent allowed himself to object to the prime minister - they say, what is preventing early parliamentary elections from being held next time? After all, the person elected in 2004 did not complete two years of his term. Karim Masimov’s answer was impeccable: “We will proceed from the fact that everything will be in accordance with the law.” Let us note that this is especially important for him, since, according to the amendments to the constitution adopted in May, the candidacy of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan is proposed by the party that won the elections, that is, Nur Otan. When journalists asked Masimov whether he expected to retain his post under the new composition of parliament, he limited himself to talking about the above-mentioned procedure for appointing the prime minister, adding that he himself was a member of the winning party.
Such a response can be considered a manifestation of political coquetry, which is quite understandable in this situation. Very informed sources in the leadership of Kazakhstan assured our newspaper yesterday with an absolute guarantee that Mr. Masimov will remain at the head of the new government.
The composition of the cabinet is likely to change slightly. Only two or three ministers will leave: having received parliamentary mandates, they will head parliamentary committees. Among them, it is believed, will be the current Minister of Culture and Information Ermukhamet Ertysbayev - a very well-known person in the country and even claiming the image of one of the ideologists of the Kazakh regime. However, those around the minister deny his upcoming resignation, calling it a “black PR campaign” by his opponents from the presidential administration. They say that Ak Orda (Nazarbayev’s residence) has its own candidates for this post...
Meanwhile, yesterday President Nazarbayev made his first personnel appointment after the elections. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kairat Abdrakhmanov was appointed Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Austria and concurrently to the OSCE instead of Nazarbayev’s disgraced former son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev. In Astana, they again started talking about the prospect of Kazakhstan's chairmanship in the OSCE in 2009. Yesterday, Prime Minister Massimov said that this organization cannot fail to take into account the assessment of the past parliamentary elections by the OSCE observer mission. “If previously only shortcomings were noted in the Kazakh elections, now progress has also been noted along with them,” Mr. Masimov said.
Another fact testifies to the fact that Astana has not given up hope of victory in the OSCE-2009 project. Yesterday, Kazakh TV showed a long interview with Nursultan Nazarbayev, given by him to the Russian All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company and the Nevskoe Vremya newspaper on August 15. However, a small passage was cut from a passage in which Mr. Nazarbayev “persuades” Vladimir Putin to stay for a third presidential term. Yesterday, Kazakh television “missed” the moment when the President of Kazakhstan calls on his Russian colleague not to pay attention to what they will say about his, Putin, third term “overseas, what they will say in Europe,” calling it “nonsense.” This edit must be understood to mean that Astana really aspires to Europe and has decided to mix up the presidential “turn of speech.”