president nazarbayev is now hinting that he may support the move to cancel the next two presidential elections, which would mean that he would automatically have his term extended until 2020. sure, he vetoed the measure before, but with parliament unanimously voting to override his veto and five million kazakhs signing a petition to have the term extended (that's over half of all registered voters in the country), who is he to disappoint the kazakh people?
as for that petition, election officials in the government somehow managed to validate almost all of the five million signatures in record time. nevertheless, opposition figures have called for closer scrutiny of the signatures. so the central election commission ordered that the five million signatures be destroyed. nothing to see here. i'm sure they were just trying to get rid of the clutter in their offices.
so it looks like kazakhstan is inevitably heading towards the elimination of any pretense that it is a democracy. the EU is concerned, but i doubt if it will make any difference. kazakhstan is no longer the head of the OSCE, so they seem to think no one is going to pay attention to that stuff in their country anymore.
as for that petition, election officials in the government somehow managed to validate almost all of the five million signatures in record time. nevertheless, opposition figures have called for closer scrutiny of the signatures. so the central election commission ordered that the five million signatures be destroyed. nothing to see here. i'm sure they were just trying to get rid of the clutter in their offices.
so it looks like kazakhstan is inevitably heading towards the elimination of any pretense that it is a democracy. the EU is concerned, but i doubt if it will make any difference. kazakhstan is no longer the head of the OSCE, so they seem to think no one is going to pay attention to that stuff in their country anymore.
