KZBlog

Kazakhstan Today noted a small event on Friday, an event that could only fit in the miscellaneous section: Kazakhstan holds akim of oblasts and cities of regional value elections

Why aren’t elections a newsworthy event? For a few reasons: Until a few years ago, the President appointed (and Parliament approved) akims (or chief executives) of the oblasts (or provinces) and major cities, who then appointed the akims of regions and towns or villages. However for the past two years some test elections have been run here and there and it turns out that the incumbent was reelected back in, in most cases.

Also, note the headline—these are oblasts and towns of regional value i.e. not of national value. The big cities and the big, important oblasts are still under Presidential control.

The third reason is that the elections proceeded as follows: The incumbent akim made a list of candidates and then the local Mashlikhat (a popularly-elected assembly that performs primarily an advisory role) voted on them. Advertisements ran on Khabar television, that the elections were coming, but the joke was that no one was expected to do anything, since the elections weren’t open to the people and perhaps they could advertise elections in the Czech Republic on Khabar as well.

I happened to catch on the 26th of December, a representative of the Central Election Committee, Onakyn Zhumabekov, on Khabar’s “Betpe bet” (Face to Face) show—a feature that follows the news every weekday where a journalist interviews someone on a pressing issue of the day, and callers/emailers and welcome to send in questions.

A couple of interesting points were made (though I give my usual disclaimer that my Russian is not fluent so I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy and I am open to correction/discussion/debate). For those interested in statistics, he said that 32 million dollars had been assigned for campaigning, which was about 51 000 per candidate. The elections were all in line with the President’s plan for democratic reform, including giving more power to the Mashlikhat and more responsibility to local governments.

What were most interesting were the phoned in questions, which were all focused on one issue: Why can’t the population participate. Mr. Zhumabekov insisted that people participate through political parties, and other political and social organizations. He got defensive at times, insisting that indirect elections are legitimate (as an American, I’m sort of stuck agreeing!) and that the Mashlikhat were obliged to follow the people’s will.

He also explained that while anyone could theoretically be on the list of candidates, an election was serious business and we should expect serious candidates of high-quality. The akims chose based on the people they know, people of high moral character, and experienced people. Not all candidates were politicians; the rolls included businessmen, representatives of farming associations, professors—a wide range of society.

A few people phoned in, on the anti-democracy side. Zhumabekov insisted that it was not too soon for elections and that the previous experiences in October of 2005 were successful though when the journalist pressed him for definitions of success, he said there were many factors including that the elections proceeded according to regulations, that the elected officials were legitimate in the eyes of the people, and that they were in fact effective leaders. Later, he mentioned that elections did not inherently lead to riots or colored revolutions and one wonders if public peace was not also a factor.

As of 14:40 results in some cities were already in, according to Gazeta.kz (in Russian). The article also tells us that:

Elections for akims were held today in 49 regions and 10 towns. 135 candidates were registered for those 59 seats.
translation mine

That works out to 2.28 candidates on average for every open position. The akims were ordered to provide at least two candidates—no word on whether they could name themselves as candidates.