Kazakhstan’s President Reelected in a Landslide

As Kazakh voters went to the polls Sunday in an election that returned President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev to another seven-year term amid opposition complaints of irregularities, one of hundreds of international monitors dispatched to the polls wore a flowing beard and a black yarmulke.

“I am probably the first rabbi to be invited as an election observer in a Muslim country, ever,” said Avraham Berkowitz, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States, who acted as Israel’s delegate to the monitoring mission.

The American-born rabbi’s presence at the polls highlighted the policy complications the U.S. faces in this sprawling nation of 15 million that expects to be one of the world’s top 10 oil producers in the coming decade. Nazarbayev’s administration has been frequently criticized for corruption, election fraud and limits on the media. But it is also one of the most stable and ethnically tolerant in Central Asia.

“I told [the president], ‘The message of tolerance you bring to this country is something that hopefully is going to have an impact on the whole region,’ ” Berkowitz said. “This is the bridge of moderate Islam ... and I think there’s a good chance for democracy to grow here.”

Nazarbayev, 65, the former Soviet-era Communist Party leader who has been Kazakhstan’s president since independence in 1991, overwhelmed his three opponents as more than three-quarters of the nation’s 8.9 million registered voters went to the polls in an election opponents said demonstrated deep flaws in the democratic progress here.

Preliminary results released today showed Nazarbayev winning 91% of the vote, while his closest challenger, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, got 7%. Several exit polls also showed Nazarbayev winning in a landslide.

Corruption and tight control of the nation’s wealth by Nazarbayev and his family were the overriding themes of a contentious campaign that featured charges of illegal arrests of opposition candidates’ workers and the mysterious death of a leading opposition politician.

Opponents complain that the majority of the $100 billion generated by the nation’s Caspian Sea oil riches has slipped abroad, while millions in Kazakhstan live in poverty. The president pointed to dramatic increases in production and living standards and an overhaul of balloting procedures aimed at a transparent and fair election.

Even before the polls closed, Tuyakbai’s representatives had filed dozens of complaints alleging irregularities in voter lists and ballot stuffing. They said government officials in southern Kazakhstan had attempted to negotiate vote totals with opposition poll observers in exchange for the latter ignoring cases of ballot fraud.

Other opposition leaders said youth activists were locked in their dormitories overnight in an apparent attempt to prevent a popular uprising like those that in recent years toppled the governments in three other former Soviet republics, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Student voters at four universities and institutes in the city of Almaty were allegedly gathered by school administrators, counted by roll call, and bused to the polls in what opposition leaders said was an apparent attempt to influence their votes.

“The balloting was completely out of control ... and quite obviously, the results of the vote were distorted significantly,” said Lyudmila Zhulanova, deputy campaign manager for Ak Zhol party candidate Alikhan Baimenov. Two other candidates, Communist Party leader Yerasyl Abilkasymov and environmentalist Mels Yeleusizov, also ran for president.

Opposition leaders said they would comply with a law prohibiting public demonstrations within the 10-day window the government has to release final election returns, and would use that time to file challenges in the courts. If that is not successful, Zhulanova said, “we will find another way to express our indignation.”

The West has been low-key in criticizing controls imposed on opposition campaigning and taken a much lower profile than in the elections in Georgia and Ukraine, when heavy U.S. support for pro-democracy groups was seen as a factor in the toppling of Soviet-era leaders.

Nazarbayev’s challengers said Kazakhstan’s huge Caspian Sea oil deposits, now under development with strong participation by Western oil companies, were critical to the West’s less-confrontational approach to the Kazakh president.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was to give its assessment of the balloting today. But Berkowitz and several European observers said Sunday that the voting in Astana, the capital, appeared to unfold with only minor glitches.

“Whatever happened preelection is one thing, but when voters walk into this room, everything is fair,” Berkowitz said at a polling station in Astana on Sunday afternoon. “They have to know who their candidate is, and it’s clear all they have to do is check it off. It’s very organized, it’s not chaotic, it’s well staffed.”

For the rabbi, his presence as an observer spoke volumes about Nazarbayev’s significance in a region, adjacent to Afghanistan, that has been traumatized by ethnic conflict and Islamic militancy.

Kazakhstan, whose 30,000 Jews date back to the Stalin purges in Russia of the 1930s and earlier, has had little or no civil violence. Many voters interviewed Sunday attributed that lack of strife to the president’s attempt to build bridges between Kazakh and Russian ethnic communities and establish an atmosphere of tolerance for all religions.

Though the newly built capital of Astana has fewer than 500 Jews, an expansive new synagogue opened last year beside a central tributary of the Ishim River. Nazarbayev recently played host to an international congress of 18 world religions, and Kazakhstan has offered to hold a conference on anti-Semitism.

“Kazakhstan is a base. It’s the arc of moderate Islam, and they automatically will influence their neighbors, all the way to Afghanistan,” Berkowitz said. “The message [I bring] in this election is, if you stick to the policies of moderation and build ties to the West, then you’re going to be a favored party anyway -- you don’t need to fight your opposition.”

Many voters Sunday also cited stability in explaining why they were casting their ballots for another Nazarbayev term.

“The most important thing is we see a peaceful sky over our heads. Economically it’s stable, and the level of life here is much higher here than it is in other places,” Tatyana Moiseyenko, 26, said at a polling station in north Astana.

But Tuyakbai supporters said the country was ready for a change. Between his terms as president and his leadership of the Communist Party in the Soviet era, Nazarbayev has led Kazakhstan for much of the last two decades.

“I’m voting for this man,” said 73-year-old retired driver Anvar Khametov, who pulled from his pocket a small calendar with Tuyakbai’s picture on it.

“I like him. He’s an honest man. He spoke about his plans, and they’re good ones.”