Elections on 3 April
The President has issued a decree setting elections for 3 April 2010, 2 months from now. Elections would have been held in December of 2012, but in a speech on 31 Jan rejecting the referendum, Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed early elections in what is being called a “compromise” between those who feel the referendum to extned his term would have been undemocratic and those who supported the idea of keeping him in office unchallenged until 2020.
Presumably, if no amendments to the Constitution are proposed, the winner of this election will serve from 2011 to 2016, a five-year term. Commentators note that the referendum brought together a coalition of Nurotan and other pro-Presidential parties and groups which can now be easily used to campaign effectively for Nazarbayev. It is unlikely that the opposition will be able to put together such a strong campaign machine in two months.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Merriman, KZ Blog. KZ Blog said: New post: Elections on 3 April http://bit.ly/g6hIZv #kazakhstan […]