Kazakh vote set for December, may spark protest

ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakhstan called a presidential vote in December, a poll likely to be won by President Nursultan Nazarbayev but which the opposition said on Friday could spark protests if it was declared flawed.

Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan, a vast but sparsely populated country with rapidly growing oil production, since 1989. The Central Asian state has not held an election judged free and fair by Western poll monitors.

Its Constitutional Council, made up of former justice officials, said the vote should be held on the first Sunday of December, December 4, resolving a long-running debate about the timing of the vote. Parliament must confirm the date.

Rigged elections in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- three other former Soviet states -- led to popular unrest in those countries which unseated long-serving rulers.

Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, who will stand as a single opposition candidate fielded by a movement uniting left- and right-wing opponents of Nazarbayev, said a rigged vote would stir trouble.

``Most likely it would provoke (unrest),'' he said. ``We call on the authorities not to play with fire.''

However the opposition, which says it wants to remain within Kazakh law, has in the past failed to stage protests because it has applied for permission to local authorities and seen its requests turned down.

But in an apparent sign of nerves, Kazakhstan has banned protests immediately after the polls and, according to leaked ministerial letters, police have bought thousands of guns, extra flak jackets, helmets and grenades.

Interior Minister Zautbek Turisbekov has said the mass protests in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine last year called for preventive measures in Kazakhstan, according to one of the letters leaked by an opposition senator in June.

Although Nazarbayev's popularity remains high, growing dissatisfaction with a stagnant political climate among some in the elite has created a more effective opposition that has said it will unite behind Tuyakbai as a single candidate.

ANOTHER RIGGED VOTE?

``The very nature of the system of power created by you prevents free and fair elections,'' Tuyakbai wrote to Nazarbayev in an open letter on Wednesday.

A former Nazarbayev loyalist who switched sides after a flawed parliamentary poll last September, Tuyakbai accused officials of being behind beatings of members of the For A Just Kazakhstan opposition movement.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored last September's poll, outlined a range a flaws including pressure on government officials, teachers, doctors and other state employees to vote for pro-Nazarbayev parties.

Nazarbayev, who is due next week to answer questions from the public in a televised live phone-in, has said his country is not yet ready for Western-style democracy and his main aim is to guard against instability spreading through the region.

The ``bloodless revolutions'' in Ukraine and Georgia were widely seen in Russia and the other former Soviet states within its sphere of influence as little more than coups financed with American money, a charge rejected by the United States.

Nazarbayev, whose rule has been marked by pressure on independent media and corruption scandals, said in June the West should ``abandon the thought of transporting Western values 100 percent to Kazakhstan.''

Kazakh presidential elections must be held in December every seven years according to the constitution.

Nazarbayev's last victory came in a vote held early, so his term expires in January 2006 prompting debate about whether the new vote should be in December 2005 or December 2006, which the Constitutional Council was called to resolve.

“New York Times”, August 22, 2005