Kazakstan Heads for Single-Party Rule

The decision by a second pro-government party in Kazakstan, the Civic Party, to merge with the governing Otan, suggests the country is sliding toward a one-party system.



On October 28, the head of the Otan party Bakhytjan Jumagulov backed a proposal by the Civic Party to unite with Otan. When the Otan party makes a final decision at the end of November, the Civic Party, with an estimated 150,000 members, will become the second party to team up with the pro-presidential force. In July, 200,000 members of the pro-government Asar led by the president’s daughter Dariga Nazarbaeva did the same thing, swelling Otan’s ranks to 700,000.



Analysts in Kazakstan see a clear trend towards the consolidation of pro-government parties and the emergence of a dominant governing “super-party”. This, they say, will lead to the creation of a de facto one-party system, despite the existence of other parties.



The Civic Party is allied in a parliamentary bloc with the Agrarian Party, which has some 60,000 members. In the 2004 parliamentary election, the two parties formed a coalition which won them seven per cent of the vote. NBCentralAsia observers predict that the Agrarians, too, will shortly go for a merger with Otan.



“The main reason for merging is that the pro-government parties replicate each another,” said political commentator Sabit Jusupov. “Lacking separate identities, they are impelled to join together.”



According to Dosym Satpaev, director of the Political Risk Assessment Group, some of the components of a one-party system are already in evidence, since Otan dominates all areas of political life.



In such a system, other parties will play the part of stage-props to give the illusion of political pluralism. There are two parties, one on each side of Otan in the political spectrum, that could play this role: the centre-left Social Democrats, recently established by Jarmakhan Tuyakbay, the former speaker of parliament who heads the opposition Movement for a Fair Kazakstan; and the centre-right Atameken party, set up only this week.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)