Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev Until 2020, no choice in power

For over 20 years, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power in Kazakhstan. Thanks to a constitutional amendment, the 70-year-old can now be kept even up to 2020 head of state - without elections. Federal government and the EU criticized the process as undemocratic. Astana / Berlin - Both chambers of the Kazakh parliament in the capital Asana nodded from the constitutional amendment: They agreed that the next presidential elections turn out in 2012 and 2017, should be discussed in which a new head of state.


Instead, the people in a referendum extending the term of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev, 70, is already 20 years in office - and will remain so for long. There is no alternative to Nazarbayev, therefore, was elections "a waste of money," parliamentarians had justified the initiative.

Just last year, Parliament had appointed the oil-and gas-rich desert state Nazarbayev to the "leader of the Nation" for life. Critics accuse the president the other hand, before the suppression of opposition and human rights violations. Free elections gave Nazarbayev has been estimated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) during his term in any case never before.

The federal government criticized the process hard. Berlin regret "the decision of the Kazakh Parliament expressly" and "full agreement" with the partners of the European Union, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Friday in Berlin. First of the year had gone Kazakhstan the OSCE presidency to an end.

At the OSCE summit in the capital Astana in early December had reaffirmed the principles of democracy and good governance, "said Seibert. "Such an extension of the term of the president for ten years without elections contradicts this very principles of democracy and good governance," criticized the spokesman of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Federal Government therefore hope that it would "take all the responsible authorities in Kazakhstan to resolving this very obvious contradiction."

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