The parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan held on January 15, 2012, were criticized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other western observers as having failed to “meet fundamental principles of democratic elections.” Yet, the criticism had less to do with the conduct of the elections than with the lack of democratic culture in Kazakhstani politics and society, albeit not stated directly. Rather than holding its elections and political system to the standards of mature democracies, the OSCE should encourage political reforms in Kazakhstan – and other post-Soviet states – by developing a set of measurements that would capture the degree of change from the old traditions and practices.
BACKGROUND: As most former communist countries, Kazakhstan is still in transition to a pluralist model of politics. In Kazakhstan’s case, its road to democratic politics is exacerbated by dual legacies: the Soviet legacy of one-party totalitarian politics and traditional political culture that predates the Soviet period. The latter, in the words of a Kazakhstani opposition leader, goes back to the times of Chingiz Khan. It holds power as the most sacred value and treats any opposition as an enemy. Within this tradition, the population above all values stability and material wellbeing and “looks favorably on the rule of one man over a long period of time.”
The Soviet political model did not fundamentally differ from the traditional, although its ideological trappings and values were foreign to Central Asians. The latter fact explains, in part, why Moscow failed in its attempt to teach, in the words of the first Soviet President Mikhail Kalinin, “the people of the Kirgiz [i.e., Kazakh] Steppe, the small Uzbek cotton grower, and the Turkmenian gardener the ideals of the Leningrad worker.”
After independence in 1991, building a market-based secular democracy became Kazakhstan’s chosen goal. The country joined the OSCE and signed on to a number of international commitments in the area of democracy and human rights. It soon became clear, though, that past legacies and practices, both formal and informal, could not be easily swept away to make room for the new set of values and practices borrowed from the advanced democracies. As a result, Kazakhstan and western democracies came on a collision course over expectations of how fast political change could happen in the country.
The friction between the sides has invariably peaked at the time of presidential or parliamentary elections, none of which have been appraised by the OSCE as meeting the international, i.e., western, standards of free and fair democratic elections. The main indicators of impropriety cited are improbably high, by western standards, voter turnout and equally improbably high percentage of votes cast for President Nazarbayev and his Nur Otan party. In that regard, the 2012 parliamentary elections were not an exception.
What is noteworthy is that by 2012, the OSCE became generally more positive in its evaluation of the conduct of the elections themselves, thus de facto acknowledging the progress made by Kazakhstan in twenty years since its independence. Its preliminary report assessed positively the conduct of the parliamentary elections in 91.4 per cent of the polling stations visited.
IMPLICATIONS: The real grievance, albeit unstated, is not the conduct of the elections but the lack of democratic culture in the Kazakhstani polity. Granted, the West has never put itself in the position of the Russian communists who aspired to teach the Kazakhs their values. Yet, in a way, the western posture has been even more unrealistic: the West just expects the Kazakhstanis to have the same values and behave the same way as citizens of the established western democracies.
Western impatience with the slow pace of political change in Kazakhstan is understandable, particularly given the resources and effort spent to promote the democratic form of government, civil society, and the rule of law in the country. Yet, impatience and relentless criticism will hardly motivate Kazakhstan to move faster or move at all. The fact that the Kazakhstani elite are not united around the democratic project often escapes foreign observers. Western criticism only strengthens the hand of those who would rather continue with the old autocratic tradition and discourages reformers from taking steps, piecemeal as they may be, toward building a democratic society. What Kazakhstan needs from mature democracies is constructive criticism, encouragement, and a helping hand.
What is also needed is realism. Even the Kazakhstani opposition leaders openly admit that traditional political culture with its deference to the ruler is the single most important barrier to their attempts to gain any meaningful support base among the electorate. The West should realize that it is traditional deference that above all motivates people to freely vote for President Nazarbayev and his supporters. Other factors that make President Nazarbayev “extremely popular,” in the words of Kenneth Fairfax, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan, are the relatively high level of material well-being and social stability. Kazakhstanis value those greatly since they see them absent in the neighboring countries.
To be realistic in its assessment of the political process in Kazakhstan, the OSCE should come up with a set of measurements that would capture the degree of change away from the old patterns and practices, not the degree of correspondence of the elections and political culture in Kazakhstan to those in mature democracies. The 2012 parliamentary elections provided a number of examples that such change is underway.
One of them is family voting – an old Soviet tradition when one member votes for the entire family. Family voting has been a recurring violation cited in OSCE reports on elections of all levels in the post-Soviet countries. This year, Kazakhstan has finally taken steps to put an end to this tradition, becoming the first in the post-Soviet space to open a number of criminal cases against heads of precinct election committees who allowed family voting. The OSCE post-election statement did not mention that positive development.
Another sign of change was the televised debate among the leaders of the parties that competed in the parliamentary election. Despite being pre-recorded, it featured direct public challenge and scathing criticism of President Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party. In fact, leaders of the opposition parties spent most of their time criticizing the Nur Otan-led government and its policies rather than familiarizing the electorate with their own platforms. Allowing criticism of the ruling elite on national television was an important step in departing from the traditional political culture that proscribed public debate of the ruler’s policies.
CONCLUSIONS: The 2012 parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan and their criticism by the OSCE raise the question of realism in assessing elections and political processes in countries where the influence of traditional political culture is strong. The West should understand that overcoming non-democratic elements in traditional political culture is a lengthy process. The growing influence of nationalist and neo-fascist parties and groups in Central and Eastern European politics shows that the road to genuinely democratic politics will be long and rocky under the best of circumstances. The OSCE should encourage political reforms in Kazakhstan – and other post-Soviet states – by developing a set of measurements that would capture the degree of change from the old traditions and practices rather than hold its elections and political system to the standards of mature democracies.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Sergei Gretsky is Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University.