Kazakh Leader Calls Snap Poll as Egypt Unrest Grows
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev
Sean Gallup/Getty Images (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Nursultan Nazarbayev
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Nursultan Nazarbayev
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Shafik Gabr, chairman of ARTOC Group for Investment and Development, an Egyptian real-estate and industrial company, talks about the unrest in Egypt. He speaks with Margaret Brennan on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness." (Source: Bloomberg)
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev called snap elections and scrapped a referendum to extend a rule that began before the break-up of the Soviet Union to avoid the protests menacing Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt.
Nazarbayev, 70, who has been in power since 1989, today withdrew the referendum prolonging his term until 2020 and called for the vote, according to a statement posted on the presidential website. The Constitutional Council in the capital Astana earlier today declared the planned referendum unconstitutional.
The unrest in the Middle East’s most populous nation has raised opposition hopes in energy-rich Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, whose President Ilham Aliyev took over from his father in 2003 in the first dynastic succession in the ex-Soviet region. The U.S. and Europe rely on oil and gas from the two countries as an alternative to the Middle East and Russia.
"Nazarbayev shouldn’t test people’s patience, he must make reforms," Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, a former prosecutor-general and speaker of the lower house of parliament who leads the opposition Social-Democratic Party in Kazakhstan, said by phone today. "The most dangerous thing is upheaval and if there are no real reforms, then tension will grow and we will end up as in Egypt."
Energy companies with operations in Kazakhstan include Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, Eni SpA, BG Group Plc, Total SA, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
‘Sky-High Rating’
The decision to call snap elections was made because Nazarbayev “has a sky-high rating” after the country’s presidency in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Yermukhamet Yertysbaev, the president’s political adviser said by phone today, adding that the vote “will solve the issue of who is in charge for the next five years.”
Presidential elections originally scheduled for 2012 may be held as early as May, according to Yertysbaev.
Kazakhstan, where the opposition failed to win a single seat in 2007 parliamentary elections, faces a threat of strife in the government because of Nazarbayev’s refusal to relinquish power, said Anna Walker, a Central Asia analyst at London-based Control Risks.
The Kazakh leader, who is certain to win the upcoming election, hasn’t chosen a successor, and this means continuing uncertainty for the West, Walker said by phone.
Oil Supplies
"We’ll get this election out of the way, but then that just pushes the indecision a few years," said Walker. "Stability is the key and the last thing Western governments want is instability in a country that is so important for energy supplies."
Kazakhstan has 3 percent of the world’s oil supplies. Azerbaijan can pump up to 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to Turkey through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and may be a key source of natural gas for the planned 7.9 billion-euro ($11 billion) Nabucco pipeline to Europe.
Nazarbayev in a state-of-the-nation address on Jan. 28 said he was “genuinely grateful” for the support of the Kazakh people for his proposed term extension until 2020. He became secretary of the Communist Party in Kazakhstan on June 22, 1989 and was elected as president of the independent country in December 1991 with 98.7 percent of the vote.
Arab Upheavals
His reversal following the constitutional ruling reflects awareness that he’s not immune to the upheavals in the Arab world, said Arkady Dubnov, a Central Asia expert in Moscow affiliated to the Moscow Carnegie Center.
Kazahkstan’s population of about 15 million is 47 percent Muslim. Protesters massed in Cairo today as a week-long uprising inspired by protests that ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14 gathered steam.
“He’s trying to make sure he doesn’t get burnt by the same fire that is spreading in the Arab street in protest at nepotism and corruption,” Dubnov said. “If it wasn’t for the huge revenues that he is distributing among a relatively small population, he could expect a similar fate.”
In Azerbaijan, which abolished the limit on more than two consecutive presidential terms in 2009, Aliyev, 49, can stay in power for years to come. This risks fueling unrest because of the large gap in living standards between the ruling elite and general population, said Walker.
‘Pressure for Change’
“One difference with Kazakhstan in Azerbaijan is that the end to booming oil and gas revenue is closer,” she said. “It is more populated and there are conspicuous differences between the elite and ordinary population, so there pressure for change will build more quickly.”
While Azeri state television and newspapers have largely ignored the events in Egypt, the opposition media seized on the prospect of an overthrow of Mubarak, 82, who has been in power since 1981.
“The army sides with the people in Egypt," Yeni Musavat headlined its front page yesterday. "The president is fleeing."
On Jan. 27, when Aliyev was away in Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, the chief of the presidential administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, convened a meeting of the state commission for the fight against corruption to promise a crackdown on graft.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are the world’s 105th and 134th most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index issued in October. That compares to Tunisia’s 59th place and Egypt’s 98th.
Ordinary Azeris may doubt the government’s willingness to fight corruption.
‘‘People want to enjoy basic freedoms in the 21st century, be employed and be free from persecution,” said Fuad Muxtar- Aqbabali, a 48-year-old English teacher in Baku. “They are determined to get rid of corrupt regimes.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Willy Morris at wmorris@bloomberg.net
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