APRIL 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – As expected, President Nursultan Nazarbayev won Kazakhstan’s presidential election. The Central Election Committee said Mr Nazarbayev won 95% of the vote with a turnout of 90%. International observers said they had recorded incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation.
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
APRIL 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev got what he wanted from Kazakhstan’s presidential election on April 3.
The Central Election Committee said he won with 95% of the vote. So, while rulers in the Middle East contend with popular uprisings, Nazarbayev has won a huge mandate to extend his 20 year rule by another five years.
But although support for Nazarbayev is high, the detail shows his victory may not have been as comprehensive as the headline figures suggest.
The main opposition boycotted the vote and said Nazarbayev’s three challengers were put up by the authorities to give the election a veneer of competition and despite an official turnout of 90%, a Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty found plenty of people who had not voted.
People also said they had been coerced into voting. In Shymkent, a city in southern Kazakhstan, a construction worker called Nazir said: “They told us that if we didn’t vote we would not be paid. So, we voted.”
International election monitors also said they had recorded incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation. But in an opinion piece in the Washington Post on March 31, Nazarbayev wrote described Kazakhstan’s economic achievements and appeared to pre-empt criticism of the vote.
“It took the great democracies of the world centuries to develop,” he said. “We are not going to become a fully developed democracy overnight. But we have proved that we can deliver on our big ambitions.”
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
MARCH 23/29 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s London-listed mining companies, ENRC and Kazakhmys, recorded large jumps in profit in 2010 because of high global metal prices. ENRC’s underlying profit doubled and Kazakhmys’ rose 75%. Both companies are closely linked to the Kazakh elite, including President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
MARCH 24 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The build up to Kazakhstan’s April 3 vote has been unfair, said Europe’s election monitoring watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It said the media is restricted and murky laws prevented potential candidates from running. President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to easily win the election.
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(News report from Issue No. 33, published on March 28 2011)
MARCH 24 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint venture between Kazakh private equity group Visor and the Turkish unit of Italy’s Relight, are planning to invest $1b in two wind farms in southern Kazakhstan. Energy generated by the wind farms would free south Kazakhstan from relying on electricity imports from Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 33, published on March 28 2011)
MARCH 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Already Central Asia’s biggest energy producer, Kazakhstan’s oil and gas ministry published plans in the official newspaper to boost natural gas production by 12%. According to the plan Kazakhstan will produce 42b cubic metres of gas in 2011 compared to 37.4b last year pushing it into the world’s top 20 gas producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
MARCH 16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan, the largest uranium producer in the world, will push ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power station by 2020 despite global concerns about atomic energy after an earthquake severely damaged Japan’s nuclear plants, media quoted the deputy head of energy as saying. Officials have said Kazakhstan’s nuclear power plant will be built on land not prone to earthquakes.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
MARCH 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defence ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — met in Astana to coordinate policy until 2013. The SCO, a military and economic group, has increased its activities over the last few years and some analysts have even referred to it as a potential counterbalance to NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
MARCH 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh energy company Kazmunaigas has asked banks for proposals to borrow $1b in a five-year unsecured loan, Reuters reported quoting unnamed sources. This is the first unsecured loan request from Kazakhstan since 2009 when the banking sector restructured. It may trigger other Kazakh companies to follow.
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(News report from Issue No. 31, published on March 14 2011)
MARCH 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev’s victory may be assured in Kazakhstan’s April 3 presidential election but a contest is emerging over turnout. The authorities want turnout to hit around 80% but the main opposition parties are boycotting the election and are campaigning for a no vote. To counter this, TV stations and celebrities have been persuading people to vote.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 31, published on March 14 2011)
