ELECTION

� Less than one third of the experts are overall aware of election orientation and intents of S. Abdildin, G, Kasymov and E. Gabbasov. Most of the experts (over two thirds) are convinced in impossibility to get such information.

Nazarbayev shrugs off criticism of Kazakh democracy days before vote

by Heather Clark

ALMATY, Jan 4 (AFP)

President Nursultan Nazarbayev shrugged off mounting criticism of Kazakhstan democracy on Monday, days before a presidential vote which some opponents charge has been engineered in his favor.

Nazarbayev told AFP in a written interview that he supported the formation of a multi-party system, local popular elections and an independent media as cornerstones of democracy. But he warned that such reforms in the former Soviet central Asian republic must be instituted gradually.

�I don�t accept just any flavor of democracy, if chaos, inter-ethnic feuds and people taking up arms ensues in the country under it!� Nazarbayev said.

The Kazakh president has been criticized for his country�s failure to uphold democratic standards in an election Sunday from which his main challenger, former premier Akezhan Kazhegeldin, was banned from running on charges of minor administrative violations.

Nazarbayev however vowed to make the election process fair in the hopes of improving his country�s tarnished image abroad.

�I think the best way to dispel any and all suspicions is openness and the transparency of the ongoing process,� he said, pointing out that workers from the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other election observers have not met with any obstacles.

OSCE officials had asked the government to delay the vote so that the organization could complete its preparations for the polls, but Kazakh officials refused to change the election date.

The OSCE request followed the government�s unexpected decision to move up the presidential elections by one year, thus giving Nazarbayev�s opponents less time to mount their campaigns.

If re-elected, Nazarbayev said he would lead Kazakhstan through its second stage of transition now that the first step � economic liberalisation � has been completed.

�After the first stage when a state system was formed and the economy was liberalized, we crossed to the next task � the creation of a real multi-party system, an increased role of non-governmental organizations and the creation of conditions to transfer part of the functions from the state to self-educated political institutions,� he said.

Nazarbayev said a plan now being formulated for the election of a number of deputies in the lower house of parliament, the Majilis, on the basis of party lists is already causing political parties to become more active.

One of the next reforms would be a program to elect mayors and regional governors, he said.

However, the president in the interview was vague about a time line for these and other reforms.

�It�s not possible to exactly plan when and in what size certain political reforms will be conducted,� he said. �For this, it is always important that the conditions ripen for their introduction.�

Nazarbayev linked further political reforms and Kazakhstan�s readiness for them with the population�s ability to understand the basic principles of a market economy.

After more than 70 years of totalitarian rule, there is a �significant part of society that demonstrates and inability to (adapt to market principles) and there are people who simply don�t wish to recognize true capitalists,� he said.

Nazarbayev said the economic and political crises in Russia and Southeast Asia only strengthened his belief that democratisation must follow the economic part of the transition to a market economy.

While Nazarbayev had been loath to admit earlier this year that the financial crises would affect Kazakhstan, now he said, �the situation in the economy has become a little complicated.�

The Kazakh president, who is expected to win Sunday�s election, said the majority of governmental activity in the next one to two years will be directed toward warding off the effects of the world economic crisis on this country of nearly 16 million people.

�We now are counting on ... actively attracting direct, long-term foreign investment in production and we will actively support local producers,� he said.

Bakhytzhamal Bekturganova

President of AsiP

Compiled According to the AsiP Data

Kazakstan�s opposition experiences �diseases of growth�. The following issues have been questioned: problems of efficiency of newly formed parties and movements, their capacity for accumulation of the initiative and political energy of citizens in the direction of implementing democratic reforms, the content and aims of long-term planning, their conformity with interests of the civil society�s self-organization.

A social significance of the opposition in Kazakstan remains extremely low, and for the time being it is assessed according to a level of individual claims of its separate political �leaders�. It is too early to consider it as a factor of democratic progress.

Expansion of representation of various, sometimes contradictory opinions becomes the sole fixable function of the opposition. This tendency is far from being simple, however. On the one hand, a number of new parties and movements is increased and it leads to stirring up of the opposition. On the other hand, the grounds for public consensus are washed away, as a result of which a general situation is destabilized in the republic.

It is obvious today that Kazakstan�s opposition engenders the same number of problems as positive results. The stirring up of the opposition is a result of unsolved social problems as well as an index of gradually growing self-consciousness of the society.

The analysis of the place and role of the opposition in the society should include elucidation of the essence of transformations taking place in it. During the second half of 1998 AsiP conducted repeated public-opinion polls in the capital. Polls are targeted at determination of the condition, common tendencies and peculiar features of Kazakstan�s emerging opposition.

Multi-Party System a la Kazakstan

Ratings of parties and movements on the basis of townsfolk�s attitude towards them within summer-autumn of 1998

(in %)

1998

All parties and movements in Kazakstan have virtually a leadership character. Announcing about themselves and at the same time having no opportunity to be widely and orderly supported by the population, a majority of them is engaged in self-destruction as �centres of crystallization� of civil initiatives. Only the movement for protecting pensioners �Pokolenie� (�Generation�), enjoying the growing confidence of the townsfolk, stands apart.

According to the poll it is hardly probable that Kazakstan�s parties will find a way out of the political crisis in the current electoral cycle. It becomes obvious that there�s divergence between actual interests of social groups & strata and their hare-brained scheme forms in the parties� activities taking place out of touch with the masses.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary elections are not far distant. And already this year the election campaign will require communication with the electorate from them.

On the average, results of fivefold polls conducted among citizens of the south capital showed 45 percent of townsfolk planned to participate in voting at the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

A majority of interviewed townsfolk is not acquainted with the activities of these parties. However, the name of the latter is a �visiting-card� for them. The following argument rings as a refrain: �We are for democracy and people�s unity. We are for them because these parties are called so�.

Returning to the Opposition

Confrontation tendencies are gaining momentum in the camp of oppositional parties and movements. Among them it is possible to distinguish conflictability of relationship with political and institutional opponents.

A notorious list of political figures was replenished by names of O. Suleimenov, K. Asanov, A. Asylbekov� Who is the next?

It seems that being rather frightened by their own status of oppositionists, leaders of the opposition avoid to support each other for fear that the �compromising material� gathered and compiled by specialized security services will grow. It is done either because of unconsidered character of ideological substantiation ( in such case programme statements are mere declarations) or for advertisement (parliamentary elections will be conducted soon). In the last case a formal appeal to the nation-wide support is a convenient jumping-off place for these or other political figures from the opposition who strive for assuming power.

Who Could Become a Leader of the Opposition?

A majority of respondents of AsiP was taken unawares by that question in September.

47.9 percent of those interviewed did not run the risk of uttering their suppositions and marked off �I find it difficult to reply�. 22.9 percent of those interviewed actually criticized the opposition by stating its phantomal character. Of 744 people interviewed in September every fourth citizen of Almaty does not know the opposition membership and doubts its availability in Kazakstan. Opinions of others were divided.

22.4 percent of those interviewed intended A. Kazhegeldin for a role of the leader of the opposition, 4.2 percent � M. Auezov, 2.1 percent � O. Suleimenov, 0.4 percent � S. Kuttykadam.

The formation of Kazakstan�s opposition starts not from zero but from the critically definite quantity. Many of its figures are not objectively ready to work in new conditions, and they do not possess abilities and financial funds for mobilization of sufficient resources for efficient filling their activities with a new content of social utility.

A gap between scales of problems faced by the society and resources at the opposition�s disposal for their solution contributes to �freezing� of a process of its growth.

PRAGUE, Jan 6

(RFE/RL)

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan have large deposits of crude oil and natural gas, the exploitation of which plays a major role in their economies.

Despite the fact that Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have been slow economic reformers, they, like Kazakhstan, have succeeded in attracting large volumes of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the fossil fuel sector.

Kazakhstan received $3.2 billion in oil and gas-related investment from 1993 through June 1998, while Azerbaijan�s oil sector attracted 1.8 billion in FDI from 1994 through June 1998. This investment helped to make these countries the main recipients of such investment per capita in the CIS.

Oil currently represents about 65 percent of Azeri exports and more than 80 percent of the FDI that it has received, while in Kazakhstan the oil and gas sector accounts for about a quarter of exports and two-thirds of FDI (although the latter figure varies widely from year to year).

Nonetheless, the production of oil and gas has not increased rapidly in any of the three countries; none is currently a major producer of these commodities on the world market. Pipeline routings remain a contentious issue, with economic and geopolitical considerations (especially the U.S. desire to minimize Russian and Iranian involvement) often conflicting. Accordingly, it is unlikely fossil fuels will contribute substantially to economic growth in these countries over the next few years.

International oil and gas companies are currently sending mixed signals about the prospects for oil and gas development in the Caspian region. A number of such companies have closed down their operations recently. For example, Unocal announced last month that it was withdrawing from all Caspian projects except those based in Azerbaijan. But the next day, Shell, Chevron, and Mobil signed a new agreement with Kazakhstan on oil exploration in the Caspian.

Production data reveal largely declining trends, at least through the end of 1997. Azerbaijan produced 9 million tons of crude oil in 1997, down from 12.5 million in 1990, while Kazakhstan�s oil production in 1997 was virtually unchanged from the 1990 level.

The most striking case is Turkmen gas extraction, which plummeted from 88 billion cubic meters in 1990 to 17 billion in 1997. Since gas represents two-thirds of both GDP and exports in a normal year (for example, in 1994), this collapse in gas production had dire consequences for the economy, with GDP declining by some 26 percent in 1997.

The decline in Turkmen gas production, which is all the more striking in a country with a good sectoral infrastructure and the world�s fourth largest gas reserves, occurred in two stages. At the beginning of 1994, a dispute with Gazprom caused the Russian gas giant to refuse to allow into its pipeline Turkmen gas bound for Europe. A visit to Ashgabat last November by Russian State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov failed to resolve the dispute.

Earlier, in March 1997, the government halted gas exports to CIS partners Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine because those countries had built up large arrears to it for earlier deliveries. However, at the end of 1998, Turkmenistan and Ukraine signed an agreement that would allow the flow of Turkmen gas to resume to Ukraine.

Although there are grounds for optimism that fossil fuels will, in the long run, play a major role in the three countries� economic development, a lot of problems must be resolved first. World economic conditions are unfavorable at present. Not only are prices low, but investors are leery of putting money into CIS countries after the collapse of the Russian economy. And a number of large oil and gas projects are coming on stream outside the region.

Moreover, developing countries have rarely genuinely benefited from oil and gas booms. Large inflows occurring in the sector contribute to strong exchange rates, which make it difficult to export other goods. In countries without transparent and efficient government sectors and with considerable regional or social inequality, revenues flowing into state coffers often benefit only tiny elites. Governments frequently spend oil money before it is earned and make commitments on which they cannot renege when oil prices fall.

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan seem likely to suffer from these problems. Only Kazakhstan has a diversified economy, although even in that country, there is concern that the government is counting excessively on oil and gas. One encouraging sign is Turkmenistan�s attempt to diversify its economy by building 50 joint venture textile plants. Another is Kazakhstan�s pension reform, under which pensions are based on the retiree�s contributions during his working life rather than paid out of a large state fund (a tempting target for government misuse) fueled by the contributions of current workers.