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Central Asia / Comment

Flawed elections in Kazakhstan: how will the international community react?

26/09/2007 By Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher

Most of the international observers sent by the OSCE described the vote counting as lacking in basic democratic standards.

The lack of transparency and assorted procedural problems noted throughout polling day tainted an election that many analysts had hoped would be a decisive step forward in Kazakhstan’s path towards democracy.

The decline in standards in comparison with previous elections was patent, with an almost 100 percent increase in observers’ unfavourable assessments of the vote count compared with the parliamentary elections of 2004 and the presidential elections of 20052.

These do not meet the expectations raised before the elections, which had been sold to the international community as the means to acquire the legitimacy needed for Kazakhstan to assume the OSCE chairmanship in 2009.

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Keywords

Elections Kazakhstan OSCE Political Reform

Bio author: Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher

PhD in Political Science and International Relationes (University Autónoma, Madrid), she is a graduate in Humanities (University Carlos III, Madrid) and in Philosophy (UNED, Spanish Distance University)