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Nursultan Nazarbayev has declared he will run for re-election in an announcement to his ruling Nur Otan party in the country’s capital, Astana. Nazarbayev, a 74-year-old former steelworker, has run the oil-rich Central Asian state since 1989, when he headed the Communist Party in what was then a Soviet republic. The next presidential election had been scheduled for 2016, but an assembly chaired by Nazarbayev proposed that it be held earlier and parliament confirmed the change last month. Nazarbaev has clamped down on dissent in Kazakhstan, and the country has never held an election judged to be free or fair by the West. Here, we take a look at the country’s election history: Take 1 - 1991In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 Communist leaders across the former Soviet republics were scrambling to secure legitimacy in the confusing and chaotic first days after the old Soviet order fell apart. Two months after the collapse, the central Asian country of Kazakhstan announced its first post-independence presidential election and set the date for 1 December. But it could be said the leadership jumped the gun: Nursultan Nazarbayev – still in power now, 24 years later – declared victory with 98.8% of the vote (his sole challenger received just 0.1%) a whole two weeks before the country officially declared independence in 1991. Victorious Nazarbayev was elected for a five-year term, but his reputation as “the strongman” was quick to emerge. The election that wasn’t - 1996There was no presidential election in 1996; instead, there was a referendum held 1995. Ambiguity around the second elections started with a challenge to the parliamentary election results in 1994 by independent candidate Tatyana Kvatkovskaya, who lost her bid for a seat in the then 177-seat parliament. Her complaints about the system, and the division of electoral districts, were reviewed by the country’s constitutional court, leading to a ruling that the Central Election Commission’s regulations were not constitutional – and that the 1994 election was illegitimate. But when he heard about the constitutional court ruling, Nazarbayev said he was surprised by the decision, vetoed it, and sent it back to the court. He then officially dissolved parliament. In March he went on to form a body called the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan which submitted a proposal to have a referendum on extending the presidential term until 2000. Admittedly, there was regional precedent in extending such a constitutional terms: other “Stans” including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan had already instigated such referendums in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Nazarbayev won the extension. There was no other viable candidate and the president claimed his economic policies would help the country turn a corner. The 1990s were a difficult time for the country, marked by wage arrears, strikes, and other side effects of a sluggish economy, but the discovery of the large Kashagan oil field in 2000 in reality did more to save the economy’s problems. In August , the president won another referendum which concentrated power in the executive branch of the government, annulling the constitutional court and replacing it with a constitutional council. 2000, or sometime in 1999?In September 1998 four MPs suggested the next presidential election should be brought forward from December 2000 to sometime in 1999. In a good example of the theatre of Kazakh politics, Nazarbayev rejected the proposal. Sensitive to claims of authoritarianism he ensured the appearance of a political process , even if the decision had already been made. The following month a group of MPs met with the president behind closed doors and convinced him to move the presidential election forward and lengthen the president’s term in office from five to seven years. Just a few days later parliament announced 10 January 1999 as the date for the next presidential election. Parliament also approved removing the constitutional limits that a president could not be older than 65 and could not serve more than two terms. Up until 2004 Kazakhstan’s political landscape was representative of genuine opposition parties and independent candidates, but not enough to tip the balance of legislation. This soon changed: since the 2005/2006 elections Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan Party has been the ruling group, with other pro-government parties having only a few seats. The charm offensive – 2005/2006The 1999 presidential election was the most fiercely contested poll ever in Kazakhstan, which spooked Nazarbayev and his cronies into wanting a longer presidential term. In June 2005, with the presidential election scheduled for December 2006, the lower house of parliament, the Mazhilis, appealed to the Justice Minister to clarify the date for the next presidential election. Some MPs argued that Nazarbayev had been inaugurated in January 1999 and that if the next presidential election was held in December 2006 he would be serving for 11 months after his mandate had expired (which had already been extended). The constitutional council was charged with making a ruling and, in August 2005, decided that the election should indeed be conducted in December. Parliament had to approve the court’s ruling but before the Mazhilis had time to do so, Nazarbayev appeared on state television in a well-orchestrated Q&A show (á la Vladimir Putin) and said he would run only “if” parliament made the decision to hold the election early. 2011 - to 2020?In mid-January 2011 parliament voted in favour of holding a referendum to keep Nazarbayev in office until 2020, citing issues of stability and continuity. But there were only two options being debated: 2020, or simply declaring Nazarbayev president-for-life. Tempting though both of these options might have sounded to Nazarbayev, he rejected the proposal, but announced that, true to form, there would be another early presidential election on 3 April 2011. A change of scenery in 2015?There are many possible answers as to why this current snap election has been called. The obvious one is that Kazakhstan is entering a difficult economic period due to its dependence on revenues from oil sales. The government’s logic seems to be: hold the election now while memories of good the times are fresh, before facing a popularity drop as purse strings are tightened. Rather ambiguously, Nazarbayev said this month that he wasn’t sure about running in the April 2015 election. “Speaking honestly, my personal plans are different… Maybe it’s time for a change of scenery,” he said. But he soon changed his mind, and will next month make another bid for the presidency that he has comfortably held for 24 years. A version of this article originally appeared in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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