In the aftermath of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly session in Astana the biggest question remains on the agenda - whether the Ak Orda people are going to  take up qualitaive reform efforts or the OSCE will have to submit to the idea that it lost the game and was fooled by the cunning Kazakh regime. The opposition in Kazakhstan and some western observers and human rights groups have been warning against granting the chairmanship in advance - in exchange for promises of democratization. Eight months later, the promises remain void, but 2009, the year when Kazakhstan will join the OSCE Troika, is coming up very quickly.

The US’s stand in this controversy has been quite principled until recently. Washington together with London were harshly objecting to the idea of giving the OSCE chair to the country that has dramatic deficit of democratic institutions and procedures. The American delegation visiting Astana tried to keep on making the things clear.

“It is imperative that the Kazakh government undertake concrete reforms on human rights and democratization to demonstrate to the international community and to Kazakhstan’s civil society that they are ready to assume the chairmanship,” US Representative Alcee Hastings told a press conference in Astana on July 1.

“Much more progress needs to be made in 2008,” added US Senator Benjamin Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who together with Hastings co-chairs the US Helsinki Commission, which monitors member states’ compliance with OSCE commitments. “One of the commitments made by the Kazakhstani government was to allow for political and election reform so that political parties can freely compete in the election progress.”

Did it work? I doubt. All of these issues were raised by the Americans in a meeting with Nazarbayev. “His response was friendly and candid”, Cardin said - but an Oriental ruler’s wisdom is to agree and smile, and keep on doing what is a benefit to him. Especially when two other congressme, Issa and Melancon, want to see him as a Nobel Prize winner.