DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTIPARTY SYSTEM IN CENTRAL ASIA
Abstract
Appraising the development of political parties, which are an effective tool for spreading democracy, as well as expressing the interests of various social groups, in the post-Soviet Central Asian countries is a rather difficult task. This is because each country in the region has its own special legislative and practical traits in this sphere. Nevertheless, some common trends in party development have already appeared. The absence of a single information source also hinders this analysis. For example, when preparing this article, the author had to rely on the Internet and information obtained from local experts and representatives of several international organizations working in the region. What is more, due to the specifics of the legislative base, it is not possible to find out the size of party membership in every county. (The tables present information on the officially registered parties, as well as information on parties' functioning as of the beginning of 2005, but still not registered.) The Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan Party headed by oppositionist Galimzhan Zhakianov submit ted its registration documents (with 80,000 signatures) and was registered in May 2004. Then on 11 December of the same year, its congress called on society to engage in civilian insubordination campaigns against “the current anti-popular authorities,” for which the public prosecutor’s office accused the party of breaking the laws on national security. After this, the court made a decision to abolish this organization. The opposition declared that the authorities were guided by political motives in this respect. Nevertheless, on 18 January 2005, the court confirmed its previous decision. We will note that there are three more parties in the country, but they are still not registered: the Democratic Party of Kazakh stan, Abyroi (Honor and Conscience) and a second communist party, the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan (CPPK).
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According to the Law on Political Parties in effect in the country, which was adopted in July 2002, a party must have no less than 50,000 members to register.
Despite the fact that A. Ermegiaev is mentioned in its registration documents, the party’s leader is considered Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
Bolat Abilov, Alikhan Baymenov, Oraz Djandosov, Altynbek Sarsenbaev, and Liudmila Zhulanova.
The data are very approximate since these parties do not have a procedure for registering membership.
2,000 Omurbek Tekebaev While carrying out the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Political Parties and Democracy Project in Kyrgyzstan in 2002 2004, only about twenty of the forty registered parties could be found and invited to the corresponding undertakings. It is most difficult to obtain information about the membership, etc. of “lost” parties.
According to the law in effect On Political Parties of Kyrgyzstan, a party need only have ten people to register. Strict registration of members is not stipulated. Data on party membership is presented according to the results of an interview with their leaders held in 2003 within the framework of the Political Research Foundation Project of the Future.
Fifteen parties were singled out which participated in the parliamentary elections in 2000.
See: Demokrat, 19 October 2004.
According to the data of the department of organizational and legal support of the Kyrgyzstan Central Election Commission.
According to the data of the AKI-Press Information Agency [http://vybory.akipress.org]. 11 See: Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 6 January 2005 [http://www.shailoo.kg].
See, for example: Varorud, No. 42 (78), 22 October 2003.
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