ELECTION AUTHORITIES IN KAZAKHSTAN WARN OF “BLACK PR” SYNDROME

As contenders for seats in parliament rev up a vigorous publicity campaign, candidates increasingly resort to dirty methods in order to damage the reputation of their rivals and win the favor of the electorate. In Kazakhstan, dishonest tactics used in election campaigns is almost normalcy. The latest wave of blackmailing and smear reduces the promises of the Central Election Committee to hold fair and transparent elections to empty words.

Three weeks away from parliamentary elections to be held according to substantial amendments to the Constitution, a large proportion of the electorate have no clear preference for any of the seven political parties on the ballot list. The latest survey conducted by the Association of Sociologists and Political Scientists in six regions of Kazakhstan and Almaty revealed that 41% of the respondents believe no change for the better has taken place in political and economic life of the country since the last parliamentary elections and 10% of them think living standards were worsening over the last ten years. Nevertheless, 71% of potential voters are willing to go to the polls on August 18.

Opinion polls show that most of the voters (26.1%) would cast their ballots for the pro-presidential Nur Otan Peoples’ Democratic Party, while the Ak Zhol Democratic Party, rating second in opinion polls, would get 7.1% of the votes. Mainstream opposition forces, such as the Nagyz Ak Zhol Party and the All-National Social Democratic Party put together, can at best reckon on 6.3% of the electorate’s support.

It seems that precisely this awareness of the plummeting voters’ confidence prompt social democrats to slide into a collision course with electoral authorities and pro-presidential forces. A decade ago, throwing down the gauntlet to authorities and populist rhetoric could win most of the electorate for the opposition camp. In the current situation, these simple tactics fail to win popular sympathy. The weakness of the All-National Social-Democratic Party is that it does not enjoy genuine popular support. Even the members of the unregistered Alga opposition party refused to join the social democrats to form an election block. Zharmakhan Tuyakbay, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, who was eulogized in the run-up to 2005 presidential elections for leaving the presidential entourage to join the opposition forces, has lost much of his once irresistible charisma after his defeat in the last elections; he did practically nothing thereafter to maintain his hard-won image of a political leader.

The Social Democratic Party, unlike Ak Zhol, is hopelessly alienated from the ethnic values of Kazakhs. Such popular demands as the promotion of the Kazakh language in public offices, or social and financial aid to repatriated Kazakhs, have never been on the priority list of the Social Democratic Party. Ironically, party leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay comes from South Kazakhstan, the most densely Kazakh-populated region, with a host of unresolved social ills, the scandalous outbreak of HIV-infection of children in Shymkent being just one of them. When on July 20 Zharmakhan Tuyakbay toured South Kazakhstan as part of his election campaign, residents of the cities of Shymkent and Turkistan pestered him with questions on how he was going to address the long overdue problems of improving of education and medical service standards, the rising costs of public utilities, and unemployment. Zharmakhan Tuyakbay walked away with another heap of promises.

Generally speaking, this year’s election race is no different from preceding campaigns. Political opponents use the slightest pretext to accuse each other of violating election laws. The editor in chief of the Almaty Info newspaper announced he was going to sue Alikhan Baimenov, the leader of the Ak Zhol Democratic Party for 12 million tenge allegedly for damages inflicted by Baimenov during the 2005 presidential elections. Baimenov, in his turn, publicly and vehemently denied these allegations and he would file counterclaims against the editor who, in his words, smeared his reputation by using deliberate blackmail. Obviously, the election campaign offers to many rivals an excellent opportunity to settle old accounts or ruin opponents, extorting large sums of money as a moral compensation for “libelous statements”.

Yermukhambet Yertysbayev, the minister of culture and information and a candidate on the list of Nur Otan, complained that he was repeatedly slandered in articles run by the opposition newspaper Vremia. He appealed to the Central Election Committee to intercede. “We are not an investigative body. It is up to the candidates themselves to sort out the problems with slanderers” retorted Grigori Kulesh, a Central Election Committee spokesman.

The so-called “black PR” or smear campaign has become part and parcel of elections in Kazakhstan. Earlier, Kuandyk Turgankulov, the newly appointed chairman of the Central Election Committee called on political parties to abide by the election law and refrain from mudslinging. But “Black PR”, it seems, will live on.