FEB. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev named April 3 as the date for a snap presidential election. He called the vote after ditching plans for a referendum that would have kept him in power until 2020. The election had been scheduled for 2012.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 26, published on Feb. 7 2011)
JAN. 31 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s constitutional committee rejected a referendum that could have kept President Nursultan Nazarbayev in power without an election until 2020. Mr Nazarbayev instead called an early presidential election. A source in the presidential administration told The Conway Bulletin that May 1 was the likely day.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 25, published on Jan. 31 2011)
JAN. 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan says 5m people have signed a petition asking for a referendum to allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to rule unchallenged until 2020.
But where are these 5m people? On the day parliament voted to back the petition I spoke to people on the snowy streets of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, but couldn’t find anybody who had been asked to signed it. The petition apparently originated from the eastern city of Ust-Kamenogorsk but some analysts have suggested the 5m signatures are fiction, needed only to legitimise political will.
Romil, a 20-year-old trainee dentist, gave his opinion. And it was typical. “Of course it’s a good thing if Nazarbayev remains in power. He is a good, strong leader,” he said. “But I haven’t signed this petition and I don’t know anybody who has.”
Next along the path was Victoria, a 30-year-old ethnic Russian teacher. She also thought Mr Nazarbayev was a good leader but had also not been asked to sign the petition.
“I am worried though that Nazarbayev is getting old and it’s not good to change the Constitution,” she said. Mr Nazarbayev is 70-years-old.
Others compared the stability that Kazakhstan was enjoying to the recent upheavals in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. “You know it’s a good thing if Nazarbayev continues. He is strong and a good leader. Just look at Kyrgyzstan for what happens without a good leader,” said Svetlana, who was out with her 4-year-old granddaughter.
And so it continued. Everybody thought it was a good idea that Mr Nazarabyev remained in power, most thought it would be good to scrap elections but nobody had been asked to sign the petition.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to insert a clause in the Constitution to allow a referendum on whether President Nursultan Nazarbaeyev should remain in power until 2020 without facing another election. The organisers of a petition supporting a referendum say they have collected 5m signatures.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 23, published on Jan. 17 2011)
JAN. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev turned down calls for a referendum to ditch presidential elections in 2012 and 2017. Parliament had backed a public petition to hold a referendum to extend Mr Nazarbayev’s rule unchecked until 2020. The US had criticised the move to scrap elections as a setback for democracy.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 26 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – This year Kazakhs could be asked to vote in their second referendum since independence in 1991.
The first referendum in 1995 asked Kazakhs to bypass the Constitution and extend Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term as president. Nearly 16 years later, a potential second referendum will ask Kazakhs to bypass the Constitution again and extend Mr Nazarbayev’s term as president.
The Constitution states a presidential election should be held every five years and the next one had been planned for 2012. Now, Parliament and the Kazakh people say they want Mr Nazarbayev to reign uninterrupted until 2020.
Opponents of Mr Nazarbayev say this highlights his autocratic ways. His supporters say the people and not Mr Nazarbayev is driving the referendum.
It is no surprise that the 70-year-old Mr Nazarbayev wants to run Kazakhstan for the next decade. His aides hinted throughout 2010 he wanted to remain in power, in June Parliament made him Leader of the Nation and his succession policy clearly still needs finalising. In 2007, Parliament also changed Kazakhstan’s Constitution to allow Mr Nazarbayev, and only Mr Nazarbayev, to run for an unlimited number of terms as president.
But scrapping presidential elections (even through a referendum) is a significant step, especially as Kazakhstan ended 2010 as chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — Europe’s human rights and democracy watchdog.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)
DEC. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Parliament voted to back a referendum to scrap the next two presidential elections and allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to stay in power until 2020. Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the referendum may be held in March.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)
NOV. 11 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva asked her parliamentary allies, the Social Democrats, to form a coalition government by Nov. 27 despite coming third in an election in October. Kyrgyzstan’s new parliament met for the first time on Nov. 10. Most of the deputies for the winning Ata Zhurt party failed to turn up.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 15, published on Nov. 15 2010)
NOV. 7 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – Political parties loyal to the president won all the seats in a parliamentary election in Azerbaijan. The main opposition party
complained of election fraud. International observers said little democratic progress had been made and that a lack of media freedom had made the election unfair.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 14, published on Nov. 8 2010)
NOV. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz central election committee gave the official results of the Oct. 10 election, triggering negotiations to form a government between the five parties that won seats in parliament. The results shut out the Butun party which says it has been cheated out of seats and has pledged to demonstrate.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 13, published on Nov. 1 2010)
