Kazakhstan

John Bowis, Struan Stevenson MEP and Brian Monteith MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) were invited to act as international observers during the elections to the Majilis or Lower House of Parliament in Kazakhstan, over the period 16-20 September 2004. They went at the invitation of The Central Election Commission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to be Independent Observers for the parliamentary elections.

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS (from their joint report):

From the eye-witness observation undertaken and the interviews with political leaders, election officials, party representatives and individual voters, we conclude overall that the election appeared to be normal, democratic and fair and in this respect, almost unique for Central Asia. Election turnout was 56.49% as 4,893,204 votes were cast out of a possible 8,662,188 registered voters. According to the vote for the ten party list seats, three parties and one bloc cleared the 7% barrier needed to gain seats. The Otan Party gained 2,883,706 votes (60.62% - 7 seats), the opposition Ak Zhol party took 572,672 votes (12.04% - 1 seat), the Asar party took 541,239 votes (11.38% - 1 seat) and the AIST bloc took 336,177 votes (7.07% - 1 seat also).

For the rest, the Bloc of the Oppositional National Union of Communists and People's Party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan received 163,824 votes (3.44%), the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan polled 94,140 votes (1.98%), the Social Democratic Party of Kazakhstan 'Auyl' got 82,523 votes (1.73%), the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan polled 36,379 votes (0.76%), the Party of Patriots of Kazakhstan - 26,287 votes (0.55%) and the Rukhaniyat Party - 20,826 votes (0.44%).

In the 67 constituency seats, 45 were decided by the above vote, with 22 to be decided in run-off elections on Sunday 3rd October. According to the CEC, 45 deputies were elected in the first round as follows: OTAN - 26, ASAR - 2, AIWU - 9, Independents - 8.

Since 2000, the authorities in Kazakhstan, together with other election stakeholders and OSCE/ODIHR, have engaged in an intensive dialogue resulting in significant improvements to the country's election law.

A total of 12 parties achieved formal registration for the election, including the opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK) Party, which had been refused registration in previous elections.

We feel that the conduct of the polling stations we visited was impressive and the new e-voting system something worth developing further, perhaps allowing more time to educate the electorate on its use.

The question of media access and media ownership in Kazakhstan remains a vexed one and should be dealt with through legislation. However, domination of the media by political heavyweights is not a phenomenon unknown in the West (i.e. Italy), so we should perhaps temper our criticism accordingly. In any market economy there remains the possibility of monopoly control of the media, unless appropriate legislation is enacted. Nevertheless, a total of seven TV debates were held during the election which, while restrictive in format, gave the parties more opportunity to inform the public of their views. As far as we are aware, there were no cases of media outlets being shut down or journalists being prosecuted, as was the case in past elections.

We would recommend that the government should provide for the free distribution of one election publication per registered party to each voter in Kazakhstan.

From our discussions with individual voters and party activists, we do not consider that undue pressure has been placed upon electors. We consider, in any case, that the electorate in Kazakhstan is sufficiently sophisticated to recognise such pressure and resist it. In almost every aspect this appeared to be a normal, fair and democratic election, with easily recognisable processes familiar to people accustomed to elections in the EU. Domestic observers were given more legal rights which provided them with greater access to the electoral process, although they were not always allowed to exercise these rights. However, in one case involving a violation of election law, the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Public Prosecutor moved vigorously against a local government official.

The election results indicated that with 60.62% of the vote, OTAN fared much as they had themselves predicted. However, ASAR with only 11.38% (They had hoped for over 30%) fared much worse. These results themselves point to a fair election, given the surprisingly poor outcome for ASAR, particularly following their domination of the media. Ak Zhol scored what they claimed was a disappointing 12.04%, leading to the resignation of their only member of the government, Information Minister Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, who claimed the polls had been "rigged." From our own observations we would find it difficult to agree with any such statement, although we were not present when polling stations closed and therefore cannot comment on allegations that final results had been tampered with. However, the performance of AIST (The Agrarian Workers and Civic Forum bloc) seems to show that they are emerging as a credible force for the future.

STRUAN STEVENSON MEP (Member of the European Parliament).

JOHN BOWIS MEP (Member of the European Parliament).

BRIAN MONTEITH MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).