Election Article Roundup
These last couple days have been very important for Kazakhstan as well as the region as a whole. Obviously there is a huge amount of information about the election already. Here are links, summaries, and excerpts to some of what’s out there:
- The answer to the big question (was it fair?) has been mixed. As Ben posts, the Caspian Information Centre’s team of British parliamentarians has judged the elections to be, “the freest, fairest and certainly the most transparent election to have occurred in Kazakhstan’s brief history as an independent state.”
- No sooner had the Centre’s team announced their verdict than they were attacked for “whitewashing a rigged election” because of petroleum interests in the region (and implicitly because of alleged oil-money flowing into the organization).
- CIS observers concurred with the Caspian Information Centre, declaring that the elections were held without serious violations.
- The OSCE took a dimmer view of the affair, and declared it flawed, calling on Kazakhstan to “make further steps towards developing open, democratic political structures in Kazakhstan, which could become a beacon for democracy in the region.”
- Russia certainly sees no problem with the election. The OSCE immediately took criticism from Moscow, and President Putin wasted no time in calling Nazarbayev to personally congratulate him.
- While there is great controversy over how flawed the election was, all seem to agree that it is better than anything Kazakhstan has seen in the past. One editorial argues that Kazakhstan “is now the one bright shining example of free market economics in Central Asia and offers the only real prospect in the region form gradual but real democratic development as well.”
- Immediately following the election, Nazarbayev pledged to pursue broad political and economic reforms, perhaps in an attempt to fend off the mostly negative press.
- Finally, there have been no reports of demonstrations or people taking to the streets as the authorities had feared.
Registan also has a good roundup of news on the election, as does KZ Blog. You can never have too many roundups for momentous events like this…
on December 6th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
There is no real controversy over ‘how flawed the election was’. Its pretty well documented in the OSCE report. You are going the same way as a number of other reports by saying, on the one hand, a few oddball British politicians working for a dubious pro-govt outfit say this, and on the other, the OSCE says that. These are two different things. The ODIHR mission is a professional election-monitoring mission, with observers throughout the country; the CIC delegation is a group of has-been politicians sitting in a hotel bar. The views of the CIS group are always entirely predictable. As for the Chinese, quoted in yet another ill-informed UPI piece linked above, what qualifications exactly do they have in election-monitoring?
Although the OSCE is also subject to political pressure, in this case my sense is that UK, US were looking for a positive result - certainly the State Dept gave as much positive spin as they could. So let’s not play this KAzakh govt game of saying that the OSCE is wrong because a couple of other foreigners said everything was alright. Even if you think that Nazarbaev would have won anyway (obviously true) or that he’s the best thing that Kazakhstan have got (arguably true) it is not good for anyone to pretend that a 91% vote is a sign of democratic progress. I think there’s a lot of pro-Nazarbaev people not entirely happy with how this result looks.
on December 6th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
David,
This is a news roundup, not an opinion piece. I’m just summarizing what news sources are saying, and there are varying reports about the fairness of the election. Obviously, the relative quality of those reports is up for debate. I meniton the CIC’s findings, but also note that they are contested.
Could you explain in more detail why you think the CIC’s report should be discounted? The OSCE report was clearly more extensive (many more observers, better established program and reputation), but do you have any specific reasons to discount the CIC all together? I see your comments on Registan, here, and previous posts that Cecil Parkinson is a “sleazeball,” and that the CIC delegation was a group of “group of has-been politicians sitting in a hotel bar,” but do these views stem from disagreement with their findings, or actual knowledge of their integrity and/or the source of their funding?
I can see an argument why the OSCE report is better, but if the CIC are a bunch of sleazeballs who should be ignored all together, could you present some evidence backing up that claim? In information you could bring to this controversy would be most appreciated.
on December 7th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
James
The CIC employs one person in London, and is financed by a HK group called Typhoon Media International, which is apparently ’seeking business opportunities in Kazakhstan’. It seems unlikely that they would want to fund any critical reports on the election. Every report it has made in the past has been in favour of the government. This is the first election it has monitored. Its team consisted of six people, including two British MPs with close links to the oil and gas sector, and two little-known academics with no previous knowledge of Kazakhstan. As far as I know they spent the day in Astana. How could they possibly have any idea of how the vote was conducted in say Karaganda?
ODIHR is a multinational institution, funded by the member-states, with 15 years of experience in election monitoring. It employed over 460 observers throughout the country. Whatever else one might say about the OSCE, its election-monitoring programme has been pretty professional over the years.
I see no reason to put the two on some kind of equal footing in terms of their ability to provide a true picture of what went on during the poll, and I find it mildly depressing that blogs like this aren’t commenting a bit more harshly on this kind of specious attempt by the Kazakh government to discredit international election monitors. I think its perfectly fair to argue that it doesn’t matter about the fraud that went on, and it didn’t affect the result, and Nazarbaev is the best choice anyway, but to say this was in some way a sign of democratic progress seems to go against all the available evidence. But it seems somehow against the spirit of blogging that the only critical piece I can find on the CIC is in the old-fashioned Times.
As for the sleazeball label, for anybody who spent any time in Britian, with an interest in politics, I’m afraid its hard to say the words Cecil Parkinson, without using the word. If you do a search on sleaze and cecil parkinson, you’ll find a good number of hits, despite his reputation as a close friend of libel lawyers everywhere.
David
on December 8th, 2005 at 12:37 am
David,
Your points are well taken; thank you for your response. I more or less agree with your position on the CIC, but disagree with your take on this post.
I read up on the CIC a bit myself before making the post, and found a lot of the information you refer to (and, I might add, link to an article that points some of those exact criticisms out). On their own website they say that their source of funding is private, but don’t specify who. Obviously that raises a red flag, but not being an insider on this matter, I was loathe, and still am, to openly attack a group on suspicions and not hard evidence. Getting money from Typhoon Media International is indeed sketchy, but does not necessarily mean they are corrupt, it just detracts from their credibility. For example, the Carnegie Moscow center gets money from Yukos, and I don’t think that delegitimizes their work. So basically, I am just explaining why I am not so quick to jump to conclusions in this regard.
I would also entirely agree with your argument that OSCE deserves more credibility.
I don’t see how a list summarizing the press around the elections translates to putting the two assessments on equal footing (which I don’t). And I think there is a concensus (including in the OSCE report) that this election was an improvement over elections in the past, even if it didn’t meet OSCE standards.
As far as a Parkinson being a sleazeball, I am not British, and don’t know much about him, so you can probably speak to his credibility better than I. I read about him sleeping with his secretary and debacle that followed, and like the CIC, that raises red flags about his character, but does not necessarily discredit his findings. Again, I am not defending him or the CIC, nor am I putting them on equal footing with the OSCE, I am just defending why I don’t feel qualified to fully condemn either.
Finally, my sense of the issue is that you don’t have much to worry about. I have been to a couple conferences on the elections at various think tanks, and the CIC isn’t even really part of the debate. No one really questions the OSCE’s findings.
on December 8th, 2005 at 1:30 am
James
thanks for the response. My comment was not meant as a personal attack on the website, which is very useful (keep up the good work). I had just been reading a number of articles (UPI/La Times, a few others) in which oddball observers of various types were given equal legitimacy as the OSCE. I thought perhaps you were heading down the same line. But if it was just a list of links, fine.
Incidentally, I have nothing against commercial contributions to NGOs or thinktanks; they should simply be transparent. With Yukos, you basically know where you are. But its always a big red flag when a thinktank only has one contributor. Interesting to see if CIC carries on its work, now that the elections are over. I guess not. Perhaps more will come out on Typhoon - we’ll see.
on December 8th, 2005 at 5:47 am
No offense taken at all. Thank you for your input and the dialogue.
on December 8th, 2005 at 11:42 am
I think David’s attacks on the CIC need some qualification, if their merits are to be properly assessed. He appears to imply that the organisation has some kind of hidden agenda, possibly likening it to the loony John Laughland brigade, which is cut of quite a different cloth. In fact, the very premise of the CIC’s findings, as stated on their web site, is of establishing how the “legal institutions of democracy” are moving away from totalitarianism and how “organic change, against a background of economic growth, is the best guarantor of a sustainable democracy.”
In this context, one needs to appreciate that the group’s remit was never to assess the legitimacy of the physical vote, but to report on the broad political continuity. Their task is to send the message back to interested parties, whoever they might be, that beyond all the deficiencies of the electoral process, Kazakhstan is a peaceful and stable country, and whether one likes it or not Nazarbayev does enjoy enormous consensus.
Furthermore, before falling over ourselves to cite the OSCE findings as ultimate proof of Kazakh meddling, we might do well to read their preliminary findings. The improvements they have identified fall largely in line with those picked up on by the CIC. When the CIC says that “the 4th December election has been the freest, fairest and certainly the most transparent election to have occurred in Kazakhstan’s brief history as an independent state,” they may not be completely wrong.
Likewise, it is worth noting the breaches of electoral propriety not laid at the Kazakhs’ feet. Interestingly, the emphasis in electoral fraud has now shifted from old-school ballot-box stuffing to a wider array of political technologies, as they are now known. Indeed, the most specific charge of vote-rigging put to the Kazakhs is related to the functioning of the electronic voting system. Here, I would say no more than that the accusations are startlingly similar to those made around the time of last year’s U.S. elections, a fact that the Kazakh authorities may have cunningly used in their favour.
Anyhow, my general point is that while I agree that the CIC’s report should not alleviate concerns about the progress of democracy in Kazakhstan, I also believe it is superficial not to understand that Kazakh progress is not predicated on electoral tests alone. I feel this is confirmed by the OSCE’s muted criticism, which they are if compared with say the report on the last Russian parliamentary election.
The concern prior to the election was not that there would be fraud, which literally nobody could have prevented, but the scale by which Nazabayev would win. This hints of problems to come in creating a genuine sense of political legitimacy in the country where consensus appears to be necessarily absolute. The OSCE’s real work begins now. Incidentally, the business interests that the CIC may or may not represent also have an important role to play, and that should not be disregarded.
on December 8th, 2005 at 11:44 am
That said, Parkinson _is_ a sleazeball.
on December 12th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
I write to respond to various comments that have been made about the Caspian Information Centre’s Election Monitoring Mission (EOM) to Kazakhstan for the 4th December presidential election.
First, it’s encouraging that a debate has started. Because prior to the CIC report on the recent Kazakhstan election, it appears to me that there was little or no debate. The OSCE seems to have a monopoly on opinion about the conduct of elections in the countries of the former Soviet Union. And since the media simply repeats slavishly what the OSCE says about obscure countries like Kazakhstan, you can easily see how opinion is formed - or rather misinformed.
Second, with respect to funding, CIC says its mission was privately organised and privately sponsored.
To me private finance is a good thing, not a bad thing. It makes people more independent, not less. Is it better that the OSCE should charge 50% of its election monitoring costs to the people of Kazakhstan? What, so as to fly hundreds of retired and very second-rate diplomats Business Class, the vast majority of whom - I do not share David’s touching faith in their “expertise” - have never monitored an election or been to Kazakhstan in their life.
IF CIC had not revealed the name of the sponsor of the mission, Typhoon Media International Limited, it seems to me that the Times newspaper would have produced an even uglier headline than “whitewash”. The real question for me is not about CIC’s funding but why The Times would attempt to discredit a group of well-known parliamentarians and academics simply for holding a view that was different to the OSCE?
The Times “sting” appears to have backfired because it has drawn more, not less attention, to the CIC report which would otherwise have been drowned out by the OSCE’s findings. In any event, does anyone seriously believe that the “sleazeball” Parkinson (I wholly agree with David, by the way, that personal slurs are generally more effective in denigrating someone than tackling him on his arguments) or Professor Kenneth Minogue, one of the most eminent political scientists in England, would tailor their views for the price of an airticket from Typhoon?
The underlying impression I have is that there appears to be a neo-Stalinist view that only the OSCE should be permitted to express an opinion - and you might take note it is always a a negative one - about elections and events in Kazakhstan. I do not accept that and assert my freedom as an individual to make up my own mind.
The CIC delegation seems to have been properly accredited by the Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan. The group preceded its election observation mission by a fact-finding trip in early October and produced a very detailed report that makes a much more insightful read than anything I have read by the OSCE. The list of meetings held by the group, which does not appear to have allowed much time for gin and tonics in the hotel bar, by the way, is available in the back of the report which may be found at the group’s website at www.caspianinfo.org.
Third, it seems to me that the Caspian Information Centre was not alone in reaching conclusions that differed from those of OSCE. At least seven other international delegations, including a very eminent one from the United States, reached the conclusion that the December 4th Kazakhstan presidential election a significant improvement and something that should be welcomed, not criticised.
Robert Barry, a former US Ambassador who served as head of the OCSE Observation Mission for the September 19th 2004 Kazakhstan parliamentary elections, and Mr. Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, stated in their joint report dated 5th December:
“The election was a genuine contest amongst three (of five) leading candidates. The people of Kazakhstan were allowed to exercise a free choice. The large turnout confirmed that the Kazakh people truly thought their votes count and matter in this election.”
By the way, you can read some of these observer reports at www.kazelection2005.org, which is the Election Commission’s English website.
Furthermore, nothing I have read in the international media since the election suggests that anyone seriously believes that the result would have been significantly different had the irregularities noted by the OSCE been avoided. So where does that leave the OSCE?
Fourth, I think there are two good reasons why the OSCE should not have a monopoly right to express views about the conduct of elections.
The first is that election monitoring is a very difficult business, and would be surprising if the OSCE should have attained the pinnacle of wisdom in such matters. And how could it? Only a handful of the OSCE’s short-term election monitoring mission in Kazakhstan had ever monitored an election before, let alone been to the country. They got to read a handbook, which you are wlecome to peruse on ODIHR’s website, and then cruised off to bond with the people of the steppe in a white Toyota Land Cruiser.
In any event, CIC appears to have been doing something different from the OSCE. They seem to be asking: is Kazakhstan moving in the right direction? It is importan to remember that the conduct of elections, though very important, is only one measure of that. Other issues are the growth of the middle class, how free the economy is, the strength of civic institutions including the judiciary, stability, inter-ethnic peace, and many other important considerations - none of which are addressed by the OSCE when it produces one of its box-ticking reports at election time.
The answer, according to CIC, is that Kazakhsatn is undoubtedly moving in the right direction, and should be praised for what it has achieved, although it clearly has some ways to go. In my opinion, you would have to be blind and embittered to travel to Kazakhstan and not come back with the same conclusion. After all, in Great Britain it took more than 600 years to achieve the level of democarcy that the Kazakhs have more or less brought about in 14 years since Independence.
The second reason why a plurality of opinion on election monitoring is important is because it would be surprising if the OSCE were immune from internal politicking, or even from pursuing institutional agendas of its own.
I do not know why the OSCE decided to emphasise the negative aspects of the recent election in Kazakhstan, despite clear evidence of advances in a number of areas – noted among others by Mr Struan Stevenson MEP, who led the European Parliament monitoring delegation, in his personal comments to Ria Novosti on 6th December.
Curiously, many quite important positive remarks about the election are in fact hidden in the pages of the OSCE’s 14-page report, as if deliberately to obscure a positive judgment. Such as the fact that “IEOM observers assessed the voting process positively in 92 per cent of polling stations visited” (page 3). Well, that ain’t bad! So why did that remark not find its way onto the front page under the headline?
ODIHR’s conclusions are a matter for them and for debate by others. What we do know is that the Russian government has been strongly critical of the way in which the OSCE has carried out its role in Eastern Europe. It seems to view ODIHR as being a Trojan horse for “Western influence”, and it has issued a complaint on 6th December that the OSCE was “out of control”. The Russian government also revealed that the Eastern members of the OSCE monitoring mission to Kazakhstan had urged the Western half to tone down their criticisms of the Kazakhstan election, but were turned down.
There is another matter. Kazakhstan has campaigned vigorously for several years to become chairman-in-office of the OSCE in 2009, the first country from the CIS to assume such a role. There are those who believe that not everybody in the OSCE is 100% happy that Kazakhstan, which is close to Russia, could one day lead the OSCE, or that the political centre of gravity of the organisation might move eastwards.
In monitoring an election in any country the clear duty of the outsider is to pay respectful attention to what is occurring and offer an independent view. CIC appears to have done that. The question for me is to the OSCE. Have they been genuinely impartial, of have they been playing institutional politics at the expense of Kazakhstan’s democracy? And if they have nothing to fear from their own conclusions, why try so hard to discredit dear old “sleazeball” Parkinson and his arthritic friends?