So, it is still too early to post analysis of yesterday’s election; the picture should crystalize early this week. But just a few days ago, the New York Times had an excellent piece on the actions of the Kazakhstani intelligence services during the 2005 presidential elections, and the Nazarbayev regime’s approach to election […]

What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative that commemorates the 1991 Moscow coup and evaluates the years in between.
The Day of the Coup - Worries, no Hopes
On August 19, 1991, the families in different parts of Kazakhstan were glued to their TVs, knowing that something worrying was going on in Moscow but […]

It’s that time of the year again: The US pro-democracy NGO Freedom House has just published its 2006 Nations in Transit report, an annual “comprehensive, comparative, multidimensional study measuring progress and setbacks in democratization in 27 countries from Central Europe to the Eurasian region of the Former Soviet Union”.
Kazakhstan received a considerably worse score […]

neweurasia devoted much time and energy to cover the December 2005 presidential elections. The following is a quick guide to the material we posted on this site.
While it was no surprise that incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev would carry home a comfortable win, the margin was subject to discussion right from the start, with some commentators […]

This is the second part of the unofficial transcript of last Friday’s CIC conference. You can read the first part here. Please do not reprint this summary without permission.
I forgot to include links to the most central documents to this discussion in the last post: Here is the OSCE/ODIHR final report on the 4th […]

The following is an (unofficial) excerpt of last Friday’s Caspian Information Center conference titled: Kazakhstan’s Presidential Election: An Assessment. Please do not reprint this summary without permission.
Due to the length of the material, I have decided to split the excerpt into two parts. The following covers the morning session until lunch, with the following […]

A day after the demonstration on Respublika Square, the Kazakh authorities explained everything to the confused observer. “Personal enmity” between Utembaev and Sarsenbaev led the former to call a hit on the latter:
After Sarsenbaev published an article giving a negative characterization of [Utembaev] in one of the national newspapers, their relations deteriorated rapidly. After […]

The fallout from the Sarsenbaev murder continues to become ever more dramatic. Today saw the first anti-government demonstration in years in Almaty, where about 1,000 protesters defied a police ban and marched on to the Respublika Square in order to commemorate the killed opposition leader. As James reported a couple of days ago, the […]

Recently freed opposition leader Galymzhan Zhakiyanov will probably not become the thorn in Nazarbayev’s side that many had hoped.
Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, leader of the Kazakh democratic opposition set free after four years behind the bars last Sunday, does not intend to return to active politics right away. As far as Zhakiyanov is concerned, both the […]

Kazakh opposition leader Ghalymzhan Zhaqiyanov was released from prison 14 January after serving a little under half of his seven year sentence. His release is expected to give a boost to the opposition, and he pledged to continue advocating reform after his release.
It seems that mixed signals are coming from Kazakhstan; several days […]