OSCE Pressure Unlikely to Prompt Kazak Reforms

Although Kazakstan is coming under pressure to live up to the commitments it made in order to chair the OSCE in two years’ time, local human rights advocates say substantive change is highly unlikely.



Kazakstan won the right to chair the grouping at an OSCE foreign ministers’ meeting at the end of November, but only after a year’s delay. Many member states opposed the bid on the grounds that democratic standards in the Central Asian state did not match up to the 56-nation group’s principles.



Opposition from Britain and the United States, in particular, prevented Astana from winning the right to chair the OSCE in 2009, as it had wanted, but ministers eventually compromised on the following year.



International concern centred on elections judged as undemocratic, limits on freedom of speech, the government’s virtual monopoly of the media, the harassment and in some cases imprisonment of opponents, and other shortcomings.



The critics saw their worries confirmed after last August’s parliamentary election, when Nur Otan, the party of President Nursultan Nazarbaev, took all the seats in the lower house of parliament.



Yet despite arguments that Kazakstan had failed to deliver any meaningful reforms in the year it was given to brush up its image, its persistent lobbying – and the backing of OSCE members including Russia - paid off.



Many observers said the final decision reflected western fears of permanently alienating the energy-rich state, or of driving it further into the arms of the Kremlin.



Since November, though, representatives of the OSCE and individual member states have reminded Kazakstan of its reform pledges.



They note that in advance of its OSCE chairmanship, Astana has promised to reform media and electoral legislation and uphold the mandate of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, whose role in election monitoring Russia has bitterly contested.



At a round table in Almaty on February 25, Ana Karlsreiter, an adviser to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, urged the Kazak authorities to reform media legislation to bring it into line with international standards.



Earlier, during a visit on February 16 and 17 that was interpreted as a “tour of inspection” of the state of reforms in Kazakstan, Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, reminded his hosts that the OSCE was “eager” to see the country fulfill its commitment to pursue democratic reforms.



But while western countries hope Kazakstan’s OSCE role will encourage a measure of reform, observers inside the country detect little evidence of change on the ground.



They point out that in his last national address on February 6, President Nazarbaev said almost nothing about politics, focusing instead on cultural and economic matters.



Eduard Poletaev, a local political analyst, said he had observed “no concern” for political reform in any recent statements made by the authorities, including the president.



“There will be some nods in the direction of democratic reform in Kazakstan, but to what extent anything will be delivered is another matter,” said Poletaev.



He said the discussion on political reform might broaden in the run-up to 2010 but he doubted it would produce more than cosmetic changes.



Poletaev said western calls for democracy had come too late in the day.



“Europe and the US should have thought about the state of democracy in Kazakstan before giving our country the right to chair the OSCE,” he said.



Human rights activist Rozlana Taukina agreed. It would be hard to bring about real change to the political system in Kazakstan between now and 2010, she said, and any apparent democratic changes made over the coming months would amount to mere words.



“You can rename something by including the word ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ in it, but its essence remains the same,” she said.



“In any case, Kazakstan was awarded the OSCE presidency without any real ultimatums or conditions.”



Taukina maintained that by handing the Astana the OSCE chair, European states had handed the government a stick with which to bludgeon the opposition.



Bulat Auelbaev, head of foreign policy research at the Kazakstan Institute of Strategic Studies, which is operates under the president’s office, disagreed.



He defended Nazarbaev’s recent focus on economic rather than political reforms, saying Kazakstan had encountered serious financial and economic turbulence in 2007 and the president’s recent public statements had naturally reflected those concerns.



Auelbaev said it was too late to start suggesting that Kazakstan was an unsuitable candidate for the OSCE chair.



“The process is already in train, it’s impossible to reverse the decision now,” he said.



Daur Dosybiev is an IWPR contributor in Almaty.