The
Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan movement, which emerged at the end of the last
year is a very irritating eyesore for the government of Kazakhstan for at
least two reasons. First, the opposition movement has been launched by top
officials in the government, an unprecedented case in the history of the
post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Second, being former government officials, the leaders
of the Democratic Choice (DCK) knew the weakest spots of the rulers of the
country very well. And last but not least, unlike other democratic forces, the
‘oligarchs’ who joined the opposition ranks possess practically
inexhaustible financial means coming from their own business networks. That
makes them the sole real opposition force able to finance its
activities.

Since
the appearance of the Democratic Choice on the political scene, the government
officials have never ceased attempts to discredit the movement in the public
eye, using the state-run servile press. The opposition media was not slow to
answer. A sensational announcement about the secret Swiss bank accounts of the
president was spread through independent media. That produced quite a stir in
parliament. Member of Parliament Serikbolsyn Abdildin, a vociferous communist
leader, demanded that a parliamentarian hearing be held on this scandalous
report.

However,
it was not the president but the prime-minister Imangali Tasmaganbetov who
appeared before the deputies. He went out of his way to shield the president
Nursultan Nazarbayev from the “slanderers”. Assuming an imperious tone he
said that the president had never had a personal bank account in any foreign
bank. At the same time, he admitted that that there was a secret reserve fund
in foreign currency created on instructions from the president in 1996. The
money, according to the prime-minister, came from the sale of 20% of the
shares of the “Tengiz” oil field to a foreign company. He said that money
from the $1 billion reserve fund was used to take the country over the
economic crisis after the 1998 devaluation of the Russian ruble.

Apparently,
far from dispelling the doubts, the clumsy explanations of the prime-minister
provoked new questions. Why, if the mysterious reserve fund was to be used for
the benefit of the people, does such a large section of the population live in
poverty? Why are food prices soaring so high that the wages and pensions can
never catch up with them?

But
the primary concern of the government seems to be the opposition. On March 27,
one of the leaders of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan movement, the former
energy minister Mukhtar Ablyazov was summoned to the tax police office and was
detained there. Ablyazov, now held in custody, is accused of embezzlement of
public money during his years in office and when he was the president of the
joint-stock power company “KEGOK’. Another leader of the DCK, Galimzhan
Zhakyanov, was charged with abusing his power, lobbying for private companies
and squandering away public money when he was governor of the Pavlodar region.

The
same day, Zhakyanov appeared at the French embassy and refused to leave the
premises, saying that he was being persecuted. His wife told the press he was
not seeking political asylum abroad, but was just trying to draw public
attention to the injustice done to him. The situation, awkward both for the
French embassy and for the government, ended up with Zhakyanov being handed
over to law enforcement bodies of Kazakhstan. The refuge seeker was then
immediately placed under house arrest.

Although
the president this time demonstrated his will to rule with an iron hand, the
opposition can no longer be easily intimidated into silence. To all
likelihood, the story of top-level corruption known here as “Kazakhgate”
will have its sequel.

Karim
Sayid