KZBlog

Slightly ignored in the fuss over the referendum, yesterday’s vote in a joint session of Parliament also approved an amendment to enshrine Nazarbayev’s status as Leader of the Nation [RUS]. Parliamentarian Rakhmet Mukashev said, interestingly enough, that the term Elbasi (Leader of the Nation) already exists in the Kazakh text of the Constitution. Earlier last year, the law on Leader of the Nation passed, which gave Nazarbayev protection from being arrested or prosecuted or have his property confiscated. Nazarbayev himself saw no need to have the Constitution amended on this point, but Parliament showed its defiance once again, and passed the call for the amendments.

In other news about the referendum, Germany has joined the US in condemning the referendum, and the head of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE has also expressed concern. Ambassador Janez Lenarcic claims in his statement that:

As a participating State of the OSCE, Kazakhstan is obliged to hold free elections at reasonable intervals and respect the right of citizens to seek political or public office without discrimination. Kazakhstan has also agreed that the basis of the authority and legitimacy of all government is the will of the people, freely and fairly expressed through periodic and genuine elections…“It is particularly distressing that this referendum initiative appeared only weeks after Kazakhstan as the then-chairmanship hosted an OSCE Summit that in strong terms reaffirmed all OSCE commitments, including those on democratic elections,” Lenarcic said.

The referendum would also be in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the legally-binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and CIS Convention on Standards of Democratic Elections.

In addition, the constitution states that international treaties ratified by Kazakhstan have priority over national legislation.

Interestingly while commentators in Kazakhstan dismissed criticism from the US, saying that the US itself was hypocritical in its own democracy or unfairly imposing its will on other countries, it will be hard for the Kazakhstan government to criticize the OSCE without tarnishing its own leadership in the OSCE.

Even Yermukhamet Yertisbayev has joined the fray criticizing the referendum, saying it is a pity that Parliament has forced this referendum on Nazarbayev. But he doesn’t blame the members, all of whom belong to the NurOtan party headed by the President himself:

We know that Nazarbayev has the support of 90% of society… The campaign that ran from the 26th of December to the 14th of January (to collect signatures in support of a referendum) clearly show and prove to the world that the president has overwhelming support…If Parliament decided against it, then it would, in principle, be made against the people. That is, the parliament was put in a position where it could not make another decision