Kazakh opposition parties join forces

Major opposition parties in Kazakhstan have joined forces, giving rise to hopes that a more balanced political system will emerge.

One pro-government group currently holds all the seats in the Central Asian nation’s parliament.

However, some observers doubt that unification will be enough to create a force capable of ousting President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party from power, according to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, or IWPR.

The merger between the Azat Party and the National Social Democratic Party, or NSDP, was announced Oct. 13 by their respective leaders, Bulat Abilov and Jarmakhan Tuyakbay.

The new group will be named NSDP-Azat once the deal has been formalized at a party congress Oct. 24. Officials say the new party will have a combined membership of 400,000 people – an impressive figure, but only about half that claimed by Nur Otan.

Speaking at a press conference in the country’s commercial center of Almaty, Abilov said the move was inspired by a desire to bring about real change and allow the opposition to become more effective in addressing issues that Kazakhstan’s current leaders had failed to deal with.

Azat’s deputy chairman, Petr Svoik, said the new force was meant to offer a credible democratic alternative in the next election. “The current system has outlived its time in political, economic and, above all, moral terms, and now it represents a threat to the country’s future,” he added. “We need to give the country the opportunity of developing.”

Kazakhstan’s next parliamentary election is scheduled for 2012, the same year that a presidential contest is due to be held. But there has been speculation for some time now that the government will announce an early election, possibly next year, when the country holds the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE.

Some analysts say Kazakh authorities are keen to create a two-party legislature to avoid being embarrassed while serving as chair of an organization that supports democracy. However, many believe the president would prefer to see a tame, non-confrontational political force take up seats in parliament alongside Nur Otan members, rather than anything resembling real opposition.