News Roundup

News Roundup - Post-Election - Saturday, August 18, 2007

By SRI ⋅ August 21, 2007 ⋅

The Economist: No Change Tolerated in Kazakhstan
President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s party won 88% of the vote in Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election and claimed every available seat. The removal of all opposition from the lower house greatly undermines the ostensibly democratic constitutional changes that served as a pretext for bringing the election forward by two years…
International Herald Tribune: EU Urges Kazakhstan to Bring Election Laws up to International Standards
The European Union has urged Kazakhstan to introduce reforms to bring its electoral laws in line with international democratic standards after a vote that gave all available parliamentary seats to the party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev…
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: EU Urges Kazakh Reform After Election Draws Criticism
A U.S. State Department spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos, said that while Kazakhstan had made progress toward democratic reform, the election fell short of international standards. He said the 7 percent barrier for parties to win seats was too high, and criticized other election rules that allow the government to appoint some representatives to the lower house…
The Moscow Times: Nazarbayev Says Sweep ‘No Tragedy’
A new parliament consisting of solely the party headed by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will be “no tragedy” for the oil-producing Central Asian state, the long-serving leader said Monday…
EurasiaNet Civil Society: Kazakhstan Set to Have One-Party Parliament Following Disputed Election
Kazakhstan’s governing Nur Otan Party will hold a near-monopoly on seats in the next parliament after scoring a landslide victory in August 18 elections. The results came under immediate criticism from international observers, and confounded most political experts, who had predicted that the opposition stood to gain more seats than ever before…
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: President Hails Election Landslide As Good For All Kazakhs
Opposition leaders say the preliminary results suggest the clock has been turned back to Soviet-era totalitarian rule. International observers have called the process flawed…
Washington Times: Kazakh Vote: A Step Forward
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan this Saturday, found them a step forward toward democracy. This is a welcome change from the usual OSCE criticism of voting in the post-Soviet countries…
NewEurasia.net: Sham Election Leaves Kazakhstani Opposition Out in the Cold
While everyone who follows Kazakhstani politics expected Nur-Otan, the President’s uber-party, to win the election on August 18th, few thought that the results would be this obviously un-democratic…
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: Kazakh Vote Sparks Fear Of Regional Imitations
When the Kazakh ruling party won all 98 seats at stake in the August 18 elections, President Nursultan Nazarbaev suggested that democracy and pluralism would not suffer under a one-party system. But political observers and opposition voices in Central Asia counter that it might have a negative impact in the region, with other leaders adopting the “Kazakh method” to tighten their grip on power…
ISN ETH Zurich: Nazarbayev’s Coup
Kazakhstan’s 18 August elections for the lower house of parliament (Mazhilis) were held ostensibly to give more power to the parliament and expand party representation in the house. None of those objectives were achieved…