Election Result Reinforces Single-Party Politics

The presidential party’s landslide overwhelming victory in Kazakstan’s parliamentary elections has taken away all hope of an alternative voice in politics, say NBCentralAsia analysts.



An election to the lower house of parliament or Majilis was held on August 18 and the results were announced the following day by President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who said his Nur Otan party had won 88 per cent of the vote.



None of the six other parties that stood for election passed the seven percent threshold needed to win seats, and all 98 went to Nur Otan. An additional nine deputies will be co-opted by the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakstan on August 22.



Opposition leaders have rejected the outcome and vowed to challenge the results in court.



Independent election monitors, including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have said that the election demonstrated progress toward democracy, but did not meet international standards, in part due to a lack of transparency during the count.



Other criticisms included at the preferential treatment Nur Otan received from the authorities and the government-run media during the campaign, the high percentage threshold for winning a seat, tough requirements for registering a political party, and residence requirements that excluded candidates who had not lived in Kazakstan for a full ten years.



NBCentralAsia analysts say that the election result means that apart from Nur Otan, no party will have any political influence in Kazakstan and parliament will be subservient to the executive.



The early election was called in the wake of constitutional amendments adopted in May which give parliament more powers and change the electoral system so that legislators are elected by proportional representation from party lists, instead of from single-seat constituencies.



Before the polls, analysts predicted that the constitutional changes might help a range of political parties to gather strength, but now they say this is unlikely.



“All the other parties have been deprived of any opportunity to influence the decision-making process. They did not get into parliament and now find themselves on the outside of political life”, said human rights activist Rozlana Taukina.



She predicts that the opposition’s appeal against the result will be hopeless unless the protest gathers huge support – and this is very unlikely to happen.



Nevertheless, Anton Morozov, head of sociopolitical studies at the Kazakstan Institute for Strategic Studies, believes that some parties will be able to stay in the political arena if they change tack and consolidate.



“The parties that did not get into parliament have a number of options – to merge and build a new constituency over the next five years, or else to take a very constructive stance, offer proposals to the authorities, and gradually occupy posts,” he said.



Morozov was dismissive of the sceptics’ view of a one-party Majilis, arguing that it will in fact make it easier to pass new laws in what he termed a “more dynamic process”.



By contrary, Taukina does not expect to see anything useful coming out of a parliament dominated by Nur Otan, which she predicts will become “merely a notary’s office to approve and rubber-stamp new laws”.



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