NZZ, 30.10.2009, S 9 Politik hinter den Kulissen in Kasachstan Wenig Rezepte der Opposition gegen den allmächtigen Präsidenten-Clan In Kasachstan geht nichts ohne Präsident Nasarbajew. Seit Jahren verschiebt dieser Reformen und unterdrückt die Opposition. Ausgerechnet Kasachstan wird 2010 den Vorsitz der Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa übernehmen.
Markus Ackeret, Almaty
Wenn Jewgeni Schowtis das politische System Kasachstans erklären soll, beginnt er mit der Sowjetunion. Die postsowjetischen Staaten, die sich in eine demokratische Richtung entwickelt hätten, liessen sich an einer Hand abzählen, sagt der Direktor des Kazakhstan Bureau for Human rights and rule of law in his apartment in Almaty, former capital of the Central Asian republic. Kazakhstan is not included. A genuine political break with the past that never existed, because the old establishment had not given the power. The socio-political orientation they can not be changed, just the economic. As a "soft" variant of an authoritarian system, as "authoritarianism with a human face", he describes the situation in his home country. are prospects of a change in circumstances do not exist.
personality cult Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan's political life revolves to the President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Who is traveling from Kyrgyzstan on the road will not only immediately aware of the steppe landscape, which begins this side of the border river Chui. Every few hundred meters are installed in the villages along the road slogans Nazarbayev in Kazakh language. Even in cities, are the world leaders his wisdom on posters for the best. He behaves as though sovereign, as if his children for 18 years after independence, the majority not yet a citizen. "Actually, there is no politics in Kazakhstan," says the young Kazakh political scientist and journalist Danijar Serikow. And if so, Nazarbayev is the only politician. "
Without it nothing is in the country. Generously, he prevented yet his appointment as lifelong president of what was in the late summer, a top man of his Nur Otan party proposed once again. Nur Otan has for a country that calls itself democratic, has a unique majority in Parliament since the elections of 2007, all seats are in their hands. It would have been easy to change the constitution in favor of Nazarbayev. This but it is enough that he was the founding president as long as may stand for re-election as he wants. The fact that he would re-elected with Soviet-style results, no one doubts. For Kazakhstan, the 2010 first post-Soviet State Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) does, is already the one-party parliament a mortgage. A formally appointed president for life would be even more intolerable.
Passive society For years, Nazarbayev promised to bring the economy back on track first and then to accept political reforms. The financial crisis that has hit the country hard because of previously widespread, easy to get in consumption loans and because of the collapse in oil prices was certainly a reason not to touch the political system and not to endanger the much vaunted stability. The opposition argued differently would have long since the Kazakhs more democracy deserves - freedom is more important than oil and gas, says one of Nazarbayev's opponents, former entrepreneur Abilow Bulat, who heads the party Asat. He and the former opposition leader Oras Schandosow who now works in Almaty as a business consultant, make the economic policy of unilateral dependence on raw materials for the slide into deep crisis.
That China and Russia play an important role in economic relations like Abilow not at all. The two countries are partners for the government but pleasant, because in contrast to Europe, asked no uncomfortable issues. Political scientist Serikow goes even further, when he referred to Kazakhstan in this regard as neo-colonial society. The primitive economic structure also contributes to a primitive society, he complained.
The dividends from the oil wealth in the Kazakh province flowed far less than in the economic capital Almaty and in the steppe newly built capital Astana. The loss of jobs through plant closures has increased during the crisis, the internal migration. there is potential for dissatisfaction, but is silent, the Kazakh society. Nazarbayev still personified the upswing after the hard first years of independence, says a Western diplomat in Astana. In any case, take care of most Kazakhs not about politics, but are busy with their daily concerns. A connection between their poor living conditions and policies in the country, they make little. The company says an expert on the political situation, be atomized. Each is look for yourself
A political opposition because it has very heavy. Access to the masses, they will not - and because they have to consider how the human rights lawyer Schowtis associated too closely with the elite. "On the day criticizing the opposition at a press conference the circles of power, in the evening to meet all together for dinner," he says exaggerated. All serious opponents of the government were once involved in the power structure or at least had been - as Abilow - maintained close ties with that.
since the former Prime Minister Akeschan Kaschegeldin, who now lives not in Kazakhstan, as a challenger to Nazarbayev profiled, exchanged a number of senior cabinet members' pages - even Schandosow was once finance and deputy prime minister and central bank chief. This disengagement will continue, predicts Schowtis. The only chance for political developments currently in the influence of the ruling circles of the opposition largely to this that were found.
disappointment with the OSCE The power elite around the Nazarbayev family knows well that they would lose on a loss of power everything. There are no institutional guarantees, only human - a reason which really should eventually be approached politicize forming middle class. But as long as they fear to expose and as passive as the majority of the population remains to be playing from behind the scenes politics of Kazakhstan. It's about the influence of different clans on the profitable assets of the state, the political decisions and, ultimately, probably the successor of the now 70-year-old Nazarbayev. The repudiation of the former son-Rahat Aliyev, who had once occupied a powerful position in the family clan moved, other family members as the second son Timur Kulibajew in front ranks.
interlocutors are convinced that in the early summer launched anti-corruption campaign of the government but is intended to eliminate potentially unpopular economic and political competition. In particular, the now living abroad, former head of the bank BTA, Mukhtar Ablyazov, Nazarbayev appeared to have become too dangerous. The spectacular overthrow and imprisonment of the entire leadership of the state of uranium and nuclear Holding Kazatomprom suggests. Wild speculation rife, but the question might be who the next weeks on the interested (and involved) parties engaged in Almaty. The uncertainty ist kaum ungewollt.
Die Opposition schaut dem politischen Gang der Dinge mehr oder weniger machtlos zu. Sie befinde sich im Reservat, meint Schowtis. Ihre Artikulationsmöglichkeit ist eingeschränkt, weil sie weder politische Ämter besetzt noch in den staatlichen Medien Gehör findet. Die wenigen existierenden freien Presseerzeugnisse haben kleine Auflagen und geraten regelmässig unter Druck.
Dass ein Land mit dem zweifelhaften demokratischen Leistungsausweis Kasachstans im kommenden Jahr den OSZE-Vorsitz übernimmt, trägt zum Ruf der Organisation und der westlichen Staaten nicht bei. Schowtis und Abilow sehen jedoch auch Positives: Der Westen sei nun Kasachstans Geisel und müsse für alles, what was happening in the country the right to share the responsibility, by Schowtis. Abilow does speak of disappointment and false promises of Nazarbayev, but hopes the same time that the intensified observation of Kazakhstan could ease the pressure on government opponents.
far, but it looks unlikely that the Kazakh government have been impressed by the commitments made special. The controversial internet law that tightened control over media and Internet blog, was adopted against the advice of the OSCE. And Yevgeny Schowtis sits above all for a formal process questionable because of a traffic accident resulting in death, a recent four-year prison sentence.
