An activist for President Nursultan Nazarbayev canvasses for the upcoming presidential poll, which critics consider a farce [Robin Forestier-Walker/AL Jazeera]
Posted on 04/02/2011 2:10:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Kazakhstan's nine million registered voters are being asked to choose their president in elections tomorrow. 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 January 31st, 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. Nazarbayev addressed the nation live on television. "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. (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," the president declared... If Egypt is a long way from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan is much closer. Its impoverished and chaotic neighbour has experienced its own special run of revolutions -- once in 2005, and again in 2010. On those occasions, public supporters of politicians that had fallen from grace brought down sitting presidents who were perceived to have allowed their families to grow fat on corruption.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.aljazeera.net ...
An activist for President Nursultan Nazarbayev canvasses for the upcoming presidential poll, which critics consider a farce [Robin Forestier-Walker/AL Jazeera]
Al Jazeera is the electronic media facilitator of the uprisings.
I’m not sure if Nazarbayev was behind this or not but Kazakhstan was the first former Soviet republic to pay back its debt to the IMF 7 years ahead of schedule. It also became the first country in the CIS to receive an investment grade credit rating from one of the major international credit rating agencies.
Thanks JH!
For?
Three.
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