KZBlog

Hope everyone had a nice New Year’s.

Following up on the referendum to allow Nazarbayev to remain in power until 2020, which requires 200 000 signatures to be approved, one group in Almaty reports that they already have 300,000 signatures in support of the referendum. However they will continue to collect signatures until 11 Jan and predict that they will have 2 million signatures by then.

Note that these signatures are just to hold the national referendum. Once the signatures are confirmed by the Central Election Committee, the President has the power to issue an edict to hold the referendum and the people will vote on the question of whether to extend the President’s term or not. From my reading of the Constitution of Kazakhstan, it is unclear whether the President must approve the referendum or whether he still has the power of veto.

I have heard from several people that signatures are being collected in the Ministries and other national companies as well as at schools with employees, teachers, and parents of students being told to sign the petition or suffer the consequences.

Meanwhile, members of opposition parties have condemned the measure as either unnecessary or undemocratic. The US Embassy in Astana also made a statement claiming the measure would be “a setback for democracy in Kazakhstan.”.

And interestingly, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, the President’s political advisor believes the measure will intensify political rivalry rather than stabilizing it. Conventional wisdom might suggest that if Nazarbayev is to remain in power until 2020, rival political groups would stand down. Yertysbayev suggests that in fact the move will force the opposition to unite in order to gain some ground in Parliament at least.

However he supports the motion as a guarantee of stability, a stable Central Asia being good for the world.