Erkanat ABENI
ALMATY, Sept 15
(THE GLOBE)
The General Prosecutor of Kazakhstan abandoned the arrest and issued the Decree on withdrawal of international search of Akezhan Kazhegeldin from Interpole, the chairman of the executive committee of RPPK announced on Wednesday in Almaty.
According to Gaziz Aldamzharov, having studied accusation laid against Kazhegeldin, the Russian Office of Public Prosecutor gave the verdict: the arrest was illegal.
The member of RPPK considers that Yuryi Hitrin abandoned all accusations against Kazhegeldin to save the reputation of the law-reinforcement bodies. �If Mr. Hitrin had not signed the Decree on September 14, the Russian General Prosecutor would have done this,� the chairman of the executive committee emphasised.
�The discharge of Kazhegeldin was not just the victory of the Republican People�s Party, but it was also the victory of all democratic opposition of Kazakhstan,� Mr. Aldamzharov emphasised.
Representatives of RPPK announced that despite special services, which fulfilled the order of the authorities, had not managed to neutralise the leader of RPPK, criminal persecutions against supporters of Kazhegeldin were continued. �Till the present time two activists of RPPK are under arrest at the administrative arrest centre for picketing the Russian Embassy. Sergei Bondartsev was sentenced to 10 days of arrest, and Baurzhan Dzharalpakov � to 5 days,� the RPPK candidate to the Parliament stated.
According to Mr. Masanov, on September 14, after the people who took part in the picket were arrested, for 3 hours the authorities could not find where they might place the arrested persons. At the police station No. 41, where the activists were brought to, they were not permitted to call their advocates. According to one of the arrested persons, policemen rudely insulted them. Her arm was pinioned and they took her mobile telephone.
�We will not give up this case and will manage to stop such an arbitrary by the law-reinforcement organisations,� representatives of the Republican Party stated.
According to Mr. Aldamzharov, the last events urged on many people to join the Republican People�s Party of Kazakhstan.
THE GLOBE asked two independent candidates to the Mazhilis to comment the discharge of Kazhegeldin.
Gani Kasymov, a candidate of the Auezov district:
I treat this (the arrest and discharge of Mr. Kazhegeldin) in the following way: now we have to think about the future. A man who begins to comment and consider those circumstances will wallow in the past. I am rather interested in a dialogue with the elector regarding how we can together animate our motherland.
Isakhan Alimzhanov, a candidate of the Al-Farabi district:
In the last issue of THE GLOBE it was interesting for me to read opinions of 6 former nomenclature functionaries regarding the arrest of another ex-representative of the nomenclature. I think, it would be interesting for readers of the newspaper to learn the opinion of common people on this event. Last time I could not answer you, as I was at the meeting with these people, my electors. I did not here similar questions from them. They have different problems. My attitude to the discharge of the former Prime Minister is quite positive. I wish him to recover and to visit his motherland more often.
Pyotr NOVIKOV
ALMATY, Sept 15
(THE GLOBE)
While opposing powerful forces of the block loyal to the President, it will be extremely difficult for the opposition�s forces to fight their way through. One of the possible legal ways to receive a cherished mandate is to collect people�s votes.
Obviously, today the support �from beneath� may be provided with votes of protesting pensioners from �Pokolenye� movement, which is the most numerous. This movement is passes ahead of all other parties together. �Pokolenye� consists of about 2 million people, who express the same opinions regarding definite issues. At the present time it is much easier to gather pensioners for meetings and demonstrations due to their poor condition and threat of dying out. In this situation it will be very difficult to collect the same number of votes of the rest part of the population due to a common disconnection.
Though �Pokolenye� has a status of a public, but not a political movement, it may be quite an influential force during the election process. Both many representatives of the opposition and some candidates fight for Irina Savostina�s inclination.
According to the leader of this movement, the situation is desperate, as there are few people who can be trusted to. She makes her choice according to �personal sympathy� principle. She chooses persons with whom she shared privations and troubles of the opposition. She says that she is ready to support many representatives of the opposition, including �Azamat�, Sedakhmet Kuttykadam, communists and even the former head of the Customs Committee the general Gani Kasymov, who is nominated in a one-mandate district. According to activists of the party, today the opposition is weak and parties are based on their leaders� authority. If the chairman leaves a party, the system will fall.
In his pre-election fight the ex-head of the Customs and ex-candidate to the President�s post Gani Kasymov decided to ask �Pokolenye� for help. He stops neither at what he has achieved nor at his failures. Having failed at the presidential election, Mr. Kasymov decided to torpedo the Parliament. Probably, from the Parliament he is planning to jump to the President�s post having accumulated the political capital.
Another version is: Gani Kasymov, the former big functionary is still true to the ruling class and tries to gain the opposition�s votes and to define their ranks.
We propose to the Reader the full text of the letter of the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to USA Mr. Nurgaliev addressed to �The Washington Times�. This influential edition gave THE GLOBE a chance to acquaintance Kazakhstan readers with the letter. Our correspondent in Washington supposes that as Kazhegeldin had not �react� to this letter, they had decided to arrest him in Moscow.
BOLAT NURGALIYEV
Ambassador Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Washington
Column about Kazakhstan lacks balance, fairness In a curious but quite telling coincidence, on the same day that The Washington Times chose to print Amos Perlmutter�s blatant attack on the status of political and economic development in the Republic of Kazakhstan (�Capitalism for one family,� Commentary, Sept. 2), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced that it was sending a full observation-and-monitoring delegation to the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan.
The OSCE, recognizing the concrete steps that the republic had taken toward openness and democratization, declared that �significant improvements� had created a new environment and that �safeguards have been documented which, if implemented fully, can ensure that the results [of the elections] are reported accurately.� It is unfortunate that this kind of balanced judgment did not characterize Mr. Perlmutter�s diatribe. The Times is free, of course, to print what it wishes whenever it wishes.
One would hope that in the future, however, it would ensure that its coverage of one of the United States� key strategic allies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia is fair and balanced and not subject to deliberate misrepresentation. For the record, Mr. Perlmutter, who apparently traveled to Kazakhstan at the invitation of the opposition organization, which spends millions of dollars on public relations abroad, especially in the United States, made substantial inaccuracies that biased the tone and conclusion of his essay. Akezhan Kazhegeldin, chairman of the Republican People�s Party of Kazakhstan (RPPK), is free to return to his country any time he so chooses. If he is in �exile,� as Mr. Perlmutter states, it is a self-imposed exile, for its own purpose. Since Mr. Perlmutter urges that Mr. Kazhegeldin �be allowed to return and compete freely,� he apparently is unaware that nothing legally prevents this.
The Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan has registered the RPPK as one of 11 political parties that expressed interest in contesting the election. If a party submits a list of candidates to run for at-large party-based positions in the upcoming elections for the Majlis (the lower house of our parliament), this party will appear on the ballot in Central Asia�s first election based on proportional representation. Additionally, any registered political party is free to have its members run for district positions to the Majlis in any or all of our 67 districts. Mr. Perlmutter asserts that Mr. Kazhegeldin �still commands more public support within Kazakhstan than its current president.� That�s a brave assertion, indeed, but it is hardly substantiated by any supporting evidence or data. And the writer�s use of letters written by Mr. Kazhegeldin�s own attorneys hardly suggests a fair and balanced presentation of the issues in this matter. The confession that he spoke only to members of Mr. Kazhegeldin�s political party during his trip to three cities of Kazakhstan also does not buttress his scholarly bona fides.
Be assured that Mr. Perlmutter would be welcomed in Kazakhstan at any time, to meet with representatives of the government and all political parties, to talk to academics, social workers, nongovernmental organization leaders and foreign investors. Such an approach would help avoid a perception of bias in favor of those who directly benefit from his so-called reporting.
The Republic of Kazakhstan, unlike many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, had no democratic infrastructure on which to build after independence in 1991. But our determination throughout these eight years can not be questioned. Brick by brick, we are building a modern society rooted on the joint principles of democracy and a free market. The upcoming elections will demonstrate significant progress in shaping a competitive multiparty political system. The October election will build on other recent successes, economic as well as political. We have attracted more per capita direct foreign investment than any of the other former republics of the Soviet Union, and we are second only to Hungary in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
We have the largest number of nongovernmental organizations in the region, and these organizations are building a strong and viable civil society. From the judicial reform and fight against corruption to the empowerment of women and strengthening of the role of the legislative branch, we are progressing toward the political and economic values of democracy and freedom that will dominate the new millennium. We urge the international community and The Times to join thousands of domestic observers and hundreds of international observers on Oct. 10, when the people of Kazakhstan proudly will take yet another giant step into the future.
Michail SERGEEV
ALMATY, Sept 14
(THE GLOBE)
�At the eve of the election we once again offered candidates to approve the Code of Honour,� the deputy the acting chairman of �Otan� party announced on Tuesday in Almaty.
According to Kazbek Kazkenov, if the Code were signed, this would be a guarantee against �dirty� technologies in the pre-election race.
�A deputy, who applies to a immoral methods during the election, will never be a honest politician who principally defends the electors� interests,� Mr. Kazkenov stated.
The previous appeal to candidates was not widely supported, as today such technologies are already used.
The party again applied to the authorities, leaders of parties and movements to conduct the election basing on �transparency� principles and under control by the society.
THE GLOBE asked some well-known politicians to comments this proposal of �Otan� party.
Pyotr Svoik, the co-chairman of �Azamat� party:
I know this proposal, but it is an absolute camouflage. The entire election system of Kazakhstan belongs to �Otan� party. This is the main this, on which the party counts to enter the Parliament. My competitor in Al-Farabi district Anvar Batalov is an example, as he expects election commission to add extra bulletins as votes for him. This Code of Honour is a fig-leaf for �Otan� to cover themselves.
Lira Baiseitova, the former chairman of the Almaty subsidiary of RPPK, who is today the leader of �Republic 2000� movement:
You either have honour or no. To have honour �Otan� should not work out the Code of Honour, which I am not going to read.
Gani Kasymov, an independent self-nominated candidate called to listen to opinions of representatives of different parties, who would deceive everybody. But you should vote for independent candidates.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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