Monitors attack Kazakhstan vote

NURSULTAN Nazarbayev, the Kazakhstan president, was re-elected by a landslide yesterday after a ballot that international observers attacked as flawed.

"There was harassment, intimidation and detentions of campaign staff," said monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The losing opposition candidate, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, vowed to challenge the result: "It's an obvious sign that our country is turning from an authoritarian regime into a totalitarian one."

But Mr Nazarbayev defended his 91 per cent share of the vote, compared to Mr Tuyakbai's 7 per cent. "Percentage points and democracy have nothing in common," he said.

The OSCE has criticised previous elections of Mr Nazarbayev, who first took command of Kazakhstan as the general secretary of the Communist party in 1989, when the state was part of the Soviet Union. He was elected in 1991, 1995 and again in 1999.

Bruce George, the head of the OSCE mission, said: "It is with no great joy that I am about to say this on behalf of my colleagues. The 4 December presidential election in Kazakhstan did not meet a number of OSCE commitments."

Monitors said violations included students being threatened with losing grants if they did not vote for the president.The Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson, head of a monitoring delegation from the European Parliament, told The Scotsman: "We've had senior doctors telling medical staff this is who you should vote for."

Opposition newspapers were confiscated or saw their print runs cancelled, television was dominated by news of the president, while satirical programmes "targeted almost exclusively opposition figures", said the report. The OSCE said a quarter of the vote count was "bad or very bad". Observers reported "unauthorised persons interfering in polling stations, multiple voting, ballot box stuffing".

Observers were also confounded by an electronic voting system used in many polling stations that could not be monitored. However, Russian observers gave the election a clean bill of health and the president, Vladimir Putin, was among the first world leaders to phone and congratulate Mr Nazarbayev. "The [Russian observers'] methodology appears to be: be nice to your friends," said Mr George.

Moscow also announced that it was pressing ahead with a plan, first announced in 2003, to create a customs union, the Common Economic Space, binding it to Belarus and Kazakhstan, which will produce a powerful oil and gas exporting trading block. Big oil companies will take comfort from the result, which is likely to mean stability for the country and expansion of pipelines.

An OSCE report of fraud was the signal for Ukraine's opposition to start its Orange Revolution this time last year, ending in fresh elections and victory. But there is little sign of Mr Tuyakbai mounting such a challenge. For one thing, Kazakhstan is enjoying an oil boom, with prosperity rising even among the millions of poor. For another, the opposition stronghold is in Almata, 600 miles south of the capital, Astana.

"This is not good news; Nazarbayev has been in power for 14 years already, which is too long for one man," said an Astana taxi driver. "Our hospitals are a mess, it is hard to make a living. The president must do more to help the people."