KZBlog

Yesterday the President of Kazakhstan gave a televised press-conference, answering the 30 most popular questions put to him on the e-government portal, and some of the questions emailed to him. Well, almost the top 30 questions…the most popular question:

Как пропатчить KDE под FreeBSD????

How can (pay for? elect?) KDE under FreeBSD? was commented on, but no one seems to know what that means.

Ak Orda.kz has a brief article on it in English. He got 5 195 questions and 169 761 votes were collected for questions.

The transcript in Russian is also posted on Ak Orda and hopefully an English transcript will follow. However, I wanted to paraphrase/translate a few of the more interesting questions and at this time, the most interesting question was probably when the President asked about his opinion of the situation surrounding Nurbank and Rakhat Aliyev.

He began his answer by saying that the existing situation had nothing to do with Nurbank directly and that the bank was running normally. Regarding Aliev, he has been charged by law-enforcement agencies with organizing a criminal group connected with kidnapping managers of Nurbank and other crimes. Nazarbayev received a statement from the wives and families of the two kidnapped managers (Timiraliyev and Gimiliov) who were concerned. The President passed this statement onto the General Prosecutor, and the police are under orders to investigate the matter fully.

Criminal proceedings have been instigated against Rakhat Aliyev and all the other members of the criminal group and the President personally ordered the General Prosecutor to investiage this matter using all legal methods. Some suspects have been arrested, and given statements, and some of these suspects have since disappeared. But if they are innocent, why have they run away? They are being sought. The final decision of who is innocent and who is guilty will be in the hands of the court.

Nazarbayev also asked the media not to interfere with the trial and said that he is monitoring the matter to ensure that everything is brought to court, and that the court will determine who is guilty.

He then said that he understood the motive for these kinds of questions (about Aliyev). Of course, as a human being, the decisions he made were not easy ones. He thanked the businessmen, members of the intelligensia, youth, and all citizens who wrote thousands of letters to him. He sees that the people of Kazakhstan support him and he has a debt that cannot be repaid to the people of Kazakhstan for their support.

Kazakhstan is becoming a rightful government, meaning that “everyone is equal before the law,” which is normal. When presenting the Law against Corruption, the President addressed all Kazakhstany, including his family and friends, that there would be no exceptions for anyone and I am fulfilling my promise.