Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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Kazakhstan Eyes a Seat in Europe
The Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan finally brought up to strength the one-party parliament of the country, having delegated nine representatives there. Once the key issue of domestic policy was successfully tackled, the leadership proceeded to making true the devout wish of President Nursultan Nazarbaev – chairing OSCE in 2009.
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev created and chaired the Assembly 12 years ago. But this year, the Assembly has got the chance to benefit from new amendments to the constitution – delegating nine of 364 members to the country’s parliament.
”We have held open, honest and fair elections,” Nazarbaev announced once the parliamentary elections were over. “They have secured the establishment of more balanced democratic political system of Kazakhstan. Other parties, unfortunately, failed to overcome the 7-percent barrier, but we will make no tragedy out of it,” the president said, explaining the single-party strength of the parliament.
Of interest is that the OSCE observers don’t challenge fair nature of Kazakh elections, the absence of any opposition in the parliament notwithstanding. In the West, they would like to direct crude oil and gas of Kazakhstan to Europe bypassing Russia. One of the options to skip Russia is to construct Trans-Caspian pipelines from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan. For this purpose, the West may even go as far as letting Astana to chair OSCE for a while in addition to calling democratic parliamentary elections that closed legislature for all parties but for the ruling one.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 21, 2007
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