OSCE DESIGNATES KAZAKHSTAN AS FIRST CENTRAL ASIAN PRESIDENCY

At their November 29-30 meeting, the foreign ministers of the 56 member governments of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) designated Kazakhstan as the first Central Asian country—and also the first former Soviet republic—to assume the position, in 2010, of the OSCE Presidency. Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin, who could become OSCE Chairman-in-Office, called the decision “a testament to the transformation our country has undergone since independence and as a strong vote of confidence by OSCE Member States for the Central Asian region as a whole.”

BACKGROUND: The Kazakh government has waged a multi-year campaign to secure the OSCE Presidency. President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has long aspired for a leadership role in Eurasia, personally lobbied foreign governments to support Kazakhstan’s candidacy. The OSCE designation will bolster his international status as well as help legitimize his government’s domestic practices.

Kazakh officials had originally hoped their country would become OSCE Chairman in 2009. Most European members—including Russia and Germany—publicly endorsed Kazakhstan’s candidacy. But several governments—most openly Britain, the Czech Republic, and the United States—considered 2011 a better date. Their main argument was that Kazakhstan needed to make further progress in upholding democratic principles and human rights at home before taking charge of the main organization tasked with promoting these values throughout Eurasia. The dispute prevented last year’s Ministerial Council, an annual meeting of all OSCE foreign ministers, from reaching a decision on the 2009 chairmanship, with the members postponing the issue until this November. On this occasion, the parties evidently settled on 2010 as a suitable compromise date.

Though noting some improvements since the previous ballot, OSCE election monitors had faulted Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections of August 18, 2007, for failing to meet international standards for a genuinely free and fair vote. Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party received 88% of the votes and won all available seats in the legislature. All the opposition parties fell short of the 7% threshold required to enter parliament. OSCE monitors complained about overly restrictive legal provisions such as the use of a high threshold for representation in the parliament, rules allowing parties to select after the ballot which of their candidates will become members of legislature, and excessive restrictions on the Kazakhs’ rights to seek public office.

Since August, Kazakh and OSCE representatives have been exchanging views how to overcome these election problems. According to U.S. officials, their Kazakh counterparts have pledged to improve their country’s civil rights practices—especially their electoral laws and media freedoms—by 2010. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said: “These are very important commitments by the Government of Kazakhstan. We intend to see that these commitments are implemented.” 

Nevertheless, some human rights and democracy advocates criticized Kazakhstan’s designation as OSCE President. Human Rights Watch said that placing Kazakhstan in charge of the OSCE’s human rights policies was “a singularly bad idea.” Freedom House—which rates Kazakhstan as “not free” and had opposed allowing Kazakhstan to assume the OSCE chairmanship in 2009 —indicated the organization would withhold judgment pending evidence that the Kazakh government would fulfill its promises to make its domestic political system more democratic and support the OSCE’s human rights objectives internationally.

In the end, Western governments apparently decided that Kazakhstan was too important a country to alienate over the Presidency issue. Europeans are counting on obtaining increasing supplies of Kazakh oil and gas in coming years. Western countries are presently engaged in a massive project to develop Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan oil field. The Kazakh government has already expressed displeasure regarding the slower than expected progress at the field. Rejecting Kazakhstan’s OSCE bid would have added yet another layer of tension.

In addition, the United States and its allies worried that Russian officials might exploit their differences with Kazakhstan to bind Astana closer to Moscow. At Madrid, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov openly attacked Western countries for seeking to link Kazakhstan’s appointment to changes in its government’s polices: “Unfortunately, during the several years that have preceded today’s meeting, there were absolutely unacceptable and unseemly maneuvers concerning this bid aimed at creating conditions on the right of a specific country—an equal member of the OSCE—to chair this organization by making demands on its internal and external policies.” 

IMPLICATIONS: One of the most important issues for the Kazakhstan presidency could be resolving the dispute between Western governments and Moscow and its allies over the functions and authority of the OSCE Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The governments of Russia and the other former Soviet republics have called for reducing the OSCE’s democracy promotion efforts, especially in the area of election monitoring. At Madrid, Lavrov said the OSCE was facing a “moment of truth” since, in his assessment, the organization either had to change its ways or “the whole European security architecture could collapse.”  In contrast, most Western governments urge the OSCE to continue strong efforts to promote democracy and human rights in the former Soviet Union, where these values are seen as gravely threatened.

Foreign Minister Tazhin released a statement affirming Kazakhstan’s support for ODIHR, including its mandate and operations. Yet, he added that Kazakhstan, whose next nationwide elections are scheduled for 2012, plans to work with all OSCE members to achieve a clear understanding of the criteria and standards ODIHR should use in assessing elections throughout the OSCE region. This formulation suggests an openness in principle to revising OHDIR’s activities. Russian officials likely will perceive Kazakhstan’s chairmanship as an opportunity to advance their OSCE “reforms” in a favorable institutional environment, but the OSCE’s consensus decision-making rules would allow any government to veto proposed changes affecting ODIHR.

In addition, the appointment of a Central Asian country to the Presidency of the OSCE could help strengthen the organization’s currently beleaguered position in several of the former Soviet republics. Burns applauded Kazakhstan’s appointment as “recognition by the rest of us that this organization is more than just about West Europeans and Americans. It’s about the people who live in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as well. So, symbolically it’s important.”

Another of Kazakhstan’s priority for the OSCE could become reinforcing the organization’s commitment to developing transit and transportation corridors linking the Central Asian countries with one another and other OSCE members. Kazakhstan’s strong economic performance in recent years, which has been partly due to high global prices for its energy exports, has led Astana to become one of the leading proponents of Eurasian economic integration.

Conversely, Kazakhstan may also play a role in shaping the OSCE’s new initiative, launched at the Madrid summit, to curb the trafficking of narcotics, weapons, and people across the Afghan-Tajik border. For example, the Ministerial Council decided to expand an OSCE project, which began earlier in November, designed to aid Afghan counternarcotics officers by allowing agents from Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors to participate. The OSCE’s current Chairman-in-Office, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, told a press conference that, “With this new contribution . . . we hope to bolster our security and we acknowledge the link between OSCE countries and the problems and challenges which exist in Afghanistan.”

The two processes of economic integration and border security are intimately related. Central Asian governments will remain reluctant to relax their border controls, which impede regional commerce, if they fear transnational criminal organizations would exploit the opportunity for illicit purposes.

CONLUSIONS: At the end of the Madrid session, Moratinos called on the member governments to convene a summit of their heads of state to resolve the stark differences that have divided the members in recent years. Some OSCE members hope that such a high-level gathering might be able to achieve a comprehensive settlement that would deal with the complex interlinking issues of the future of OHDIR, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the Minsk process seeking a negotiated solution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, and other disputes. Given the time required to organize such a meeting among the contentious participants, Astana could well have the honor of hosting the first such gathering since the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Richard Weitz is Director for Project Management and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson institute.