Freedom House Denounces Grab for Power in Kazakhstan, Criticizes Positive U.S. Response

Freedom House today condemned the move by Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev to make himself president for life.

The language of a constitutional amendment signed into law yesterday permits Nazarbayev—but not successive presidents—to be re-elected indefinitely. In light of the country’s repressive political atmosphere that has stifled any legitimate electoral contests, the constitutional limit on presidential terms in office was the only practical constraint on Nazarbayev. In amending the constitution to allow himself an unlimited reign, President Nazarbayev joins a growing list of authoritarian leaders worldwide who have extended their terms indefinitely.

“Despite the government of Kazakhstan’s obvious desire to be seen as legitimate, the country continues to take steps that lead it farther from democracy,” said Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director of Freedom House. “Like many others around the world who have changed the rules in order to prolong their hold on power, a leader who manipulates the constitution in order to remain in power loses any semblance of democratic legitimacy.”

Nearby, the late President Niyazov of Turkmenistan was declared “president for life” by the parliament in 1999. Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, has recently extended his presidency and seems poised to push for constitutional reform similar to Kazakhstan’s.

Egypt’s President Mubarak recently introduced a group of constitutional amendments, one of which allowed the president to be elected to an unlimited number of terms. The amendments passed in a popular referendum in March that was widely seen as illegitimate.

While the recent move by Nazarbayev has elicited alarm on the part of many human rights supporters around the world, responses by representatives of the U.S. government have been surprisingly muted or even positive, in contradiction with the Bush Administration’s policy of promoting freedom and democracy. The U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan commented that the uproar about the changes to the constitution “tends to distract the attention from [Kazakhstan’s] overall positive forward movement,” while a State Department spokesman affirmed yesterday that the amendments constitute “a step in the right direction.”

“Freedom House is disappointed with the response of the U.S. government to Nazarbayev’s recent actions,” said Dr. Robert Herman, Director of Programs at Freedom House who recently returned from a trip to Kazakhstan. “While our government has a number of interests in Kazakhstan, it was not necessary to issue these gratuitously rosy statements. It sends a very discouraging message to human rights activists in the region for the United States to broadcast such a positive assessment of what is, clearly, an undemocratic move.”

Kazakhstan ranks as Not Free in the 2007 edition of Freedom in the World. The country received a rating of 6 (on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 as the lowest) for political rights and a 5 for civil liberties.

Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world, has monitored political rights and civil liberties in Kazakhstan since it became independent in 1991.

For more information about Kazakhstan, visit:

Freedom in the World 2007: Kazakhstan
Freedom of the Press 2007: Kazakhstan
Nations in Transit 2006: Kazakhstan