ELECTIONS IN CENTRAL ASIAN STATES: OLITICAL RIVALRY IN A TRANSITIONAL SOCIETY
Abstract
The beginning of the third millennium is a very difficult time to make an objective assessment of the events going on in the countries and regions of the world. The images of the Great Chess Board, the classical heritage postulates espoused by geopoliticians, the attempts to create new “symbols of evil,” and the deliberate criticism of democratic principles as a universal political dominant are too often distorting the objective picture of our reality. In this respect, a well-balanced analysis of the electoral processes in the newly independent states of Central Asia is of considerable interest. The significance of the party and personal composition of the power institutions in the region’s countries is determined not only by their resource potential, the situation in Afghanistan, and the fight to prevent new threats to international security. Although Central Asia is historically closely related to Russia, today there are several other major foreign political actors in the region who are declaring their interests: the U.S., Turkey, China, Iran, Pakistan, India, and the European Union with its individual countries. Their participation is giving all the political processes going on in the Central Asian republics a comprehensive and de facto global dimension.
Acquiring national sovereignty and achieving development under conditions of post-union statehood have become serious tests for these countries. During these years, their social systems have come close to the critical mark on several occasions, while the crisis trends in the social and political spheres have not been fully overcome, despite the optimism instilled in the official statements. On the whole, the situation in the region refutes the apocalyptic forecasts regularly offered by some experts and politicians at the beginning of the 1990s, and is currently characterized by significant positive shifts. All the same, the development and stability prospects of the Central Asian states is still a topic of numerous discussions in which parliamentary and presidential elections have recently found themselves the center of attention.
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References
Although the concept “standard” in the electoral process is rather provisional, analysts usually refer to the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to corresponding international pacts, and recently to the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen
Declaration. These documents contain the basic principles for recognizing the legitimacy of power: political power in a
democratic society should be based on the will of the majority, on granting all citizens equal rights to vote and to the secrets of voting, on the principle of rotation of power, and on the principle of freedom of election information. What is more,
in 2001, at the summit held in Kishinev, the CIS adopted a Convention on Observing the Voting Rights of the Population,
which confirms the adherence of the post-Soviet states to the basic international principles in this sphere.
See in particular: K.P. Borishpolets, “Klany i politicheskaia vlast,” Azia i Afrika segodnia, No. 2, 1991; S. Biriukov, “Elity-klientely kak kliuchevoi factor politicheskogo razvitia Tsentral’noaziatskikh gosudarstv,” Russkii zhurnal [http://
centrasia.org/newsA.php4?st=1048023480]; K. Collins, “The Logic of Clan Politics: Evidence from the Central Asian Trajectories,” World Politics, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 2004, pp. 224-138.
See: S. Luzianin, “Goriuchaia smes is politiki i kriminala. Promezhutochnye itogi ‘tiulpanovoi revoliutsii’ v Kirghizii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 28 November, 2005.
See: Z. Todua, “Kyrgyzstan after Akaev: What Happened and Why, What Next?” Central Asia and the Caucasus,No. 3 (33), 2005.
According to possibly slightly exaggerated estimates of the Tajik opposition, approximately 60% of the popu-lation lives on the income of migrants from Russia, 25% on drug revenue, and 15% on humanitarian aid from foreign countries.
[http://www.gtnews.ru/cgi/news/view.cgi?goto=8431/], 12 December, 2005.
The Democratic Party initially refrained from joining the coalition, but after it was unable to get any guarantee from the head of state regarding amendments to the law on elections and confirmation of the quotas to leading posts in the gov-ernment, on 2 August, 2004, it also joined ranks with it.
M. Iskandarov—former member of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), field commander during the bloody civil war of 1992-1997, openly criticized the Tajikistan government, among other things for holding the 2003 referendum which established the procedure for E. Rakhmonov’s re-election, permitting him to remain president until 2020.
99.8% of the registered voters (2,391,315 people) took part in them. 144 candidates ran for 65 seats in the National Council, and 6,323 for 5,535 mandates in the local self-government bodies.
Fifty voting districts and 1,610 polling stations were formed for holding the election. Approximately 77% of the electorate participated in the voting.
Saparmurat Niyazov has been ruling Turkmenistan continuously since 1985, in the beginning as leader of the Communist Party Central Committee, and since 1991, as the nationally elected president. In 1999, the National Council removed the restrictions on the presidential term and Saparmurat Niyazov was declared lifetime president. In 2002, the Council adopted this decision again, although lifetime presidency is not legislatively enforced.
On 7 April, 2005, at an extended government meeting, which was broadcast on local television, S. Niyazov said:
As for me personally, I deeply acknowledge both my responsibility to the people and to the state, and my duty to ensure succession at the highest echelon of the country’s power.”
In December 1991 at the alternative election, Islam Karimov was elected president of Uzbekistan. In March 1995,in keeping with the results of the national referendum, the term of Karimov’s presidential powers was extended to 2000. On 9 January, 2000, during the election of the Uzbekistan president, in which Islam Karimov and leader of the People’s Dem-ocratic Party of Uzbekistan Abdulkhafiz Jalalov participated, he was again elected the head of state. At that time, 91.9% of the voters who participated in the election voted for Karimov, and 4.1% for the second candidate to this post
Between 2000 and 2005, the GDP in Kazakhstan rose by 62.4%, while in Russia it rose by 33%. The average annual rate of economic growth in these countries amounted to 10.2% and 5.9%, respectively.
The Kazakhstan government is currently working on increasing the per capita GDP to 8-9,000 dollars by 2012. The average monthly salary by this time should exceed 70,000 tenge (on the order of 500 dollars), and pensions should increase two-fold.
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