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SUMMARY

Kazakhstan’s vast energy wealth has, in recent years, made it an important geostrategic partner for many countries. It has also raised the political stakes inside the country significantly. As a consequence, throughout the past two years the government has undermined freedoms to shield itself from public scrutiny and political rivals, and to protect its substantial control over the hydrocarbon sector. Unless the government and international community act now to protect political freedoms, the country’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 2004, are unlikely to meet international standards.

Several developments contribute to this concern. First is the conduct of recent elections. In the September 2003 local council elections, the opposition claimed that the government attempted to exclude its candidates from the ballot through arbitrary misdemeanor and other criminal charges, and other means of harassment and intimidation. The authorities also manipulated the December 2002 parliamentary by-elections. These are but the most recent examples of a series of problem-ridden elections in the past decade. Prominent among these were Kazakhstan’s last national elections in 1999, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) found to be deeply flawed.

Second are the new legal barriers the government has erected to the registration of political parties. Third is the government harassment of members and supporters of Kazakhstan’s opposition political parties and movements. In some cases, this has taken the form of arbitrary criminal and misdemeanor charges and threats of job dismissal, in many cases aimed at preventing the individual from running for public office.

The cumulative effect of these policies and practices has been a narrowing of the choices before the Kazakh electorate in the forthcoming elections. This report documents these developments. It describes how the July 2002 law on political parties served to reduce the number of registered parties from nineteen in 2002 to seven in 2003, and how the government obstructed the registration of opposition parties and movements. It documents government prosecution or harassment of fifteen members of unregistered parties and movements. The most prominent of these were the 2002 prosecution and imprisonment of Galymzhan Zhakianov and Mukhtar Abliazov, the leaders of the political movement Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK).¹ A journalist who fiercely criticized the government and had covered opposition politics, Sergei Duvanov, was convicted in a politically motivated trial in 2003.

In November 2002, President Nazarbaev created the Permanent Consultative Council to draft proposals for the development of democracy. The Council includes representatives from the parliament, government, presidential administration, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations. This is a welcome step, but to demonstrate genuine commitment to political pluralism the government must release political prisoners, reform the law on political parties and the electoral code, and cease its harassment of opposition party members and their supporters.

On November 17, 2003, President Nazarbaev authorized Kazakhstan’s signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).² This is also a welcome step, although as of this writing, the parliament has yet to ratify the treaty. Nonetheless, Kazakhstan as a signatory is already obliged to “refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose”³ of the ICCPR, such as government repression of opposition politicians and supporters. Also prohibited are state actions that violate the rights to freedom of assembly (article 21), expression (article 19), to participate in public affairs (article 25), and to be free of arbitrary arrest and detention (article 9).