last month a "grass roots" movement spontaneously sprung up in ust-kamenogorsk (oskemen) proposing a referendum to extend president nazarbayev's current term until 2020 (which would cancel the 2012 and 2017 presidential elections). why bother with pesky and expensive elections that everyone knows he will win? they asked.
the answer is probably because it looks bad to the rest of the world. did i mention that by total coincidence, the referendum movement appeared just after the OSCE summit ended in astana and what little international attention kazakhstan had gone away?
in any case, parliament took up the issue and pass a bill calling for the national referendum. (never let it be said that the kazakh parliament isn't responsive to the needs of the people!) president nazarbayev, however, vetoed the bill.
this follows a bit of a pattern, as prez naz also vetoed bills that would have expanded his presidential powers in the past, most recently in 2010--thus making a bold statement to the world that he is, in his heart, a democrat, notwithstanding the desperate (and completely independent) cries of his people to let him continue to control the levers of power in their country.
but this year's referendum proposal would not die! no, this time, parliament voted unanimously to override president nazarbayev's veto! holy shit, are they in trouble!!! i mean, no one has ever publicly rebuked the president like that before, right? the country does have a few free expression-related issues. some folks who publicly protest the referendum proposal were arrested last month and they're on the same side as the president on this issue!
there may be some pesky procedural problems with the way it went down, but the only real question is whether the president of kazakhstan will respect the democratic wishes of his people and allow the effective end to any pretense of democracy in kazakhstan. actually, an even more pressing question is whether the president realizes just how ridiculous this whole tap-dance will look to the outside world if they take notice.
i've never understood why people like nazarbayev don't get that the best way to go down in history as a great statesman is to peacefully turn over power to someone else when his normal term is up. if nursultan did that, he really would stand out among leaders the other leaders in post-soviet central asia. the guy has not been an awful president, especially when you measure him against the extremely low bar set by some of his neighbors. but if it happens the "president for life" thing will ultimately make him remembered outside of kazakhstan as little more than another tin-pot dictator.
