| |
 Kazakhstan flirts with dynastic
succession
ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN -- Dariga Nazarbayeva has led a charmed life. The bespectacled
40-year-old is a doctor of political science, an acclaimed opera singer and the head of
the largest media holding company in her native Kazakhstan. In short, if she tries her
hand at something, she usually succeeds.
Of course, it helps that her father, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been the country's
uncontested leader for more than 15 years, reaching back to a time when it was still part
of the Soviet Union. It's impolite not to applaud a mezzo-soprano at the end of a
performance under ordinary circumstances, but it can be career-limiting when the singer's
daddy runs a regime not known for tolerating dissent.
Now, many believe Ms. Nazarbayeva is being groomed for her biggest role yet -- to one day
succeed her father as president of Kazakhstan. Observers are watching with concern as a
country that for centuries was ruled by Genghis Khan and his descendants flirts once more
with dynastic succession.
Certainly, Ms. Nazarbayeva's first eight months as a full-time politician have been as
successful as her other endeavours. Almost as soon as she announced in January that she
was setting up a new political movement called Asar (Kazakh for "together"), a
party she founded with her father's "permission," people began flocking to join.
Nominally a democracy, Kazakhstan's looming parliamentary election will be purely a family
affair. With the vote now six weeks away, Asar has 230,000 members, second only to her
father's Otan movement, among 12 registered parties. In recent polls, the daughter's party
has even nudged slightly ahead of the father's, unsurprising given her influence on the
media, which have been fawning in their coverage.
Critics say this likely suits Mr. Nazarbayev just fine. The 63-year-old's job isn't on the
line in these elections -- his stated ambition is to run for another seven-year term in
2006 -- and a first-place finish for Asar would see his daughter become Speaker of
parliament, meaning she would be constitutionally in line to succeed him if he should
suddenly fall ill or be forced to step down.
Ms. Nazarbayeva, a mother of three whose husband, Rakhat Aliyev, is Kazakhstan's
ambassador to Austria, doesn't like to talk about the idea of one day becoming president,
preferring instead to praise the additional wisdom that she says her father has gained
with his increasing years. But she won't dismiss it, either.
"I can't say never. I can't swear it will never happen," she says, sitting in
the spacious office of the International Institute for Modern Politics, a research
institute based in the southeastern city of Almaty that she heads as a side job.
Throughout a lengthy interview, she mixes phrases of practised English into her fluent
Russian.
"I can't give my opponents such a cause for celebration. Let them wonder. I like
it," she adds with a soft laugh.
She will, however, go so far as to predict that her party will claim perhaps as many as
half of the seats in the elections. She says her party is popular with the masses because
it "is a pro-presidential party which is not afraid to talk about the problems and
isn't afraid to criticize authorities for bad work or for being disobedient to the
president."
She disagrees with the suggestion that a father leading one party and a daughter leading
the other means the country's democracy is in dire straits.
Talk of family succession in Kazakhstan is matched by similar chatter in other former
Soviet republics in Central Asia, a region where old Communist Party stalwarts still reign
and where clan politics have much deeper roots than modern concepts like democracy.
In neighbouring Uzbekistan, many believe President Islam Karimov's daughter Gulnara
married the Foreign Minister to increase the odds that the next president would be a
relative. In Kyrgyzstan, President Askar Akaev's son Aydar (who married Mr. Nazarbayev's
youngest daughter Aliya six years ago in what was dubbed Central Asia's "royal
wedding") is often mentioned as a potential successor.
All are said to have drawn inspiration from the smooth handover of power last year in
Azerbaijan, another former Soviet republic, across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan, where
Geidar Aliev, before he died, engineered his son Ilham's ascension to the presidency.
The motive in some cases may be self-preservation. Opposition leaders in Kazakhstan say
that Mr. Nazarbayev wants his daughter to succeed him to ensure that his successor is
someone who won't seek to prosecute him. The oil-rich country, a rare economic success
story in Central Asia, has seen its development held back for years by corruption and
human-rights abuses.
During his 15 years as president, Mr. Nazarbayev has become one of the world's richest
men, and suspicion has fallen on the way he handled the privatization of the country's
natural resources during the 1990s. An American businessman who was one of his top
advisers at the time is currently on trial in the United States for paying millions of
dollars in bribes to Kazakhstani officials, a case that has become known as
"Kazakhgate."
"At any time, [Mr. Nazarbayev] could be indicted in relation to Kazakhgate. In this
case, the President needs someone to replace him," said Bulat Abilov, co-chair of Ak
Zhol, the country's largest opposition party. "No other country in the world has a
situation where the daughter has one party and the father has another party and these are
the only choices."
By MARK MacKINNO
The Globe and Mail
05 Aug 2004
|
|