Kazakistan

U.S. Leaks Show Kazakh Plan to Squeeze Opposition

31 March 2011
Reuters
PRAGUE — Kazakhstan's long-serving president won praise from the United States and pro-democracy advocates whenin January he rejected a plan to secure another 10 years of uncontested rule and instead called a presidential election.

But according to unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables, Nursultan Nazarbayev'sgovernment planned to deny opposition parties a free election as recently as 2009 because it feared a vote could deal a blow to the ruling Nur Otan party.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewedby Reuters, underscore Nazarbayev's firm grip on power.

They also pose difficult questions for the United States, which is struggling to reconcile long-standing support for autocratic leaders whopromise political stability with growing popular calls for more personal freedoms and democracy. It's a conundrum Washington faces across the Arab world from Morocco to Bahrain.

But as the cablesshow, it's also an issue in Central Asia, where the United States relies on a collection of autocratic countries for support in Afghanistan and to check Russia's influence in its former empire.Quoting U.S. diplomats' conversations with a Kazakh presidential adviser and the Kazakh ambassador to Washington, the cables said Nazarbayev was eager to find a successor — a pressing questionfor investors who have funneled more than $120 billion into the oil- and metals-exporting country during his rule.

But in a follow-up conversation, the adviser said there were no obvious candidates and itwould take time for one to emerge from a young generation of Western-educated Kazakhs.

He added that Nazarbayev could stay in power until 2020.

In a move political analysts say was designedto avoid unwelcome comparison with authoritarian leaders in the Arab world, 70-year-old Nazarbayev called a presidential election for April 3.

But the cables detail recent thinking on how to thwart...