KZBlog

The Kazakhstan Embassy in the US puts out information and news bulletins for anyone interested. [EDIT: Not sure how to subscribe to it now, but try writing to Zhanbolat Ussenov, zhan@kazakhembus.com, who puts it out regularly.]

A couple of landmarks:
1) Kazakhstan signed the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on November 21. This is taken as a sign of increasing democratization.

2) The national polling agency KazRating shows Nazarbayev with 76% of the votes in Almaty and 75% of the respondants will vote while 8.6% will abstain. This marks a 5% increase in popularity for Nazarbayev since the beginning of the campaign on Oct. 25th.

3) The first “One stop” goverment center in Kazakhstan opened in Astana (where all government agencies are located, making it the least needed location for such an office). This project was proposed last year to let people register to vote, get marriage licenses, driver’s licenses, pay taxes, etc. all in one office. I had understood that the point was to give people in small towns and villages a chance to access these services without having to go all the way to a big city but here they claim it will fight corruption. The offices will be computerized and networked, which I can tell you is painfully needed (Nothing is more horrible than watching a babushka seek your name in the hand-written journals).

4) In the cabinet meeting, at which the President announced Astana would become the new financial center of Kazakhstan subtly signaling the death of Almaty, the Prime Minister also announced that Kazakhstan should be ready for the WTO by the middle of next year.

And let’s not forget that next week is Almaty Fashion Week! And here I am in Astana. Ctolitsa nashi strani, indeed!

[EDIT: An unnamed Russian-based survey group reports that 75% of the electorate is against Nazarbayev on the heavily opposition, anti-Nazarbayev IAC Eurasia. 75% may just be a magic number.]