Article 23 of the Kazakh Structure ensures residents the precise to the liberty of affiliation. “Nevertheless, in follow, we have now encountered a state of affairs the place this proper has grow to be nearly unattainable,” Meiram Kazhyken, chief of the unregistered YNTYMAQ political get together, wrote in a current enchantment to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Kazhyken recounted that YNTYMAQ had twice submitted paperwork to register as a political get together, and twice been refused. He wrote that the refusals had been “primarily based on simply rectifiable remarks.” The group, he mentioned, then turned to established a public affiliation – “ULT YNTYMAǦY” – “instead type of participation in public life” and met with 22 refusals.
In a March 2022 speech – two months after greater than 230 individuals had been killed throughout widespread unrest in early January – Tokayev unveiled his grand plan for a “New Kazakhstan.” He proposed a bevy of initiatives, together with increasing “Alternatives for the Growth of the Occasion System.”
“The course in the direction of constructing a New Kazakhstan relies on the necessity to guarantee honest and free political competitors. To attain this, we should create essentially the most favorable setting doable for the institutional and organizational improvement of events,” Tokayev mentioned. He proposed decreasing the brink for get together registration from 20,000 to five,000 and different shifts to ease the creation of political events.
“New events will emerge which are able to skillfully articulating and successfully fixing the urgent issues of their voters,” Tokayev boldly claimed.
However though Tokayev’s wish-list of constitutional adjustments was granted within the Might 2022 referendum, and thresholds for registration had been lowered – on paper – it has not led to the emergence of latest events. Or relatively, new events have tried to emerge however been persistently rejected.
Kazhyken, in his current enchantment, argued that “the registration process has turned not right into a authorized management mechanism, however into an insurmountable administrative barrier. It’s particularly alarming that the precise to create a political get together – the muse of democracy and the idea of political competitors – has confirmed unattainable. With out actual get together competitors, the event of a democratic system is unimaginable, and any reforms threat remaining merely declarative.”
Kazhyken is a a Kazakh economist and educational, with prior associations with the Federation of Commerce Unions of Kazakhstan. In 2022, he stepped into the political area for the primary time. YNTYMAQ’s creation was introduced in April 2022. Kazhyken contested the November 2022 presidential election, however was nominated by the “Amanat” Commonwealth of Commerce Unions since YNTYMAQ had not achieved registration.
By December 2024, YNTYMAQ had had its registration rejected twice. On the time Kazhyken wrote, “Each occasions, the organizing committee was denied registration of the political get together. The explanations for the refusal are very weak and unconvincing.” He provided encouragement of Tokayev’s acknowledged reforms. “We ask you to proceed reforming the laws on political events, specifically, this can be very necessary to prescribe strict and clearly interpreted guidelines relating to: the formation of an initiative group, the process for holding a constituent congress, the content material of constituent paperwork, together with the checklist of ‘get together members’ (of a celebration that doesn’t but exist).” In these factors, he argued, the Ministry of Justice finds room for interpretation and decides in opposition to registration.
Along with his newest enchantment Kazhyken sought to position his get together’s wrestle – and arguably that of others who’ve sought to type political events in Kazakhstan and met with constant refusals – into a worldwide context, and illustrate the stakes concerned in denying individuals participation in their very own authorities.
“The size of protests [around the world] is on an upward pattern. The primary causes are social inequality, corruption, and mistrust of the authorities. Kazakhstan is not any exception. Weakly justified refusals to register events and associations improve mistrust and create a threat of protest mobilization,” he famous.
“With out the actual risk of registering events and associations, Kazakhstan dangers remaining among the many nations with restricted freedoms, and public belief in reforms will decline.”
Though Kazakh authorities – not the least of them Tokayev – have made statements in regards to the want for residents to be engaged within the political course of, the alternatives to take action stay restricted.
Forward of the snap parliamentary elections in March 2023, two new events – Respublica and Baytaq – had been registrated, the primary new events to realize registration in a decade. However as Paolo Sorbello wrote for The Diplomat simply after the election:
Respublica, a bunch that vows to defend the rights of entrepreneurs, was registered on January 19, the identical day as Tokayev’s announcement that the nation would maintain snap elections. Baytak, a self-proclaimed environmentalist get together, was registered the month earlier than the vote, after greater than a dozen makes an attempt to be formally acknowledged.
After the vote, it grew to become clear that the brand new events would serve radically totally different functions. By gaining 8.5 p.c of the votes, Respublica has grow to be the most recent characteristic of Kazakhstani politics and is prone to parrot the federal government’s plans for business-friendly reforms. Baytak, alternatively, failed to realize sufficient votes to enter the parliament and can proceed to occupy a complicated function in Kazakhstan’s push for an vitality transition.
In the meantime, Sorbello identified: “Actual opposition events, such because the Democratic Occasion or Alga Kazakhstan, which have repeatedly tried to register, weren’t allowed into the race.”
YNTYMAQ isn’t alone. In Might 2022, Vlast catalogued 16 efforts at beginning new events, together with YNTYMAQ’s. Of these, solely Respublica and Baytaq achieved registration.
And a few have confronted a lot worse than rejection. Zhanbolat Mamai, the chief of the unregistered Democratic Occasion, was arrested in February 2022 and satisfied in April 2023 on fees that he orchestrated “mass riots” in the course of the 2022 protests. Though the cost carried the potential for a decade in jail, he was given a suspended six-year sentence. In lieu of jail time, he was topic to a broad ban on social and political exercise. In September 2024, Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court docket refused to listen to his enchantment, successfully silencing him.
In interesting to Tokayev, Kazhyken urged the president – who’s pushing towards one other constitutional referendum – to “genuinely simplify the procedures for registering political events and public associations, eliminating administrative arbitrariness on the a part of the registering physique.”
“We hope that our voice won’t solely be heard, but additionally accurately understood,” Kazhyken concluded, interesting to a president who promised a “listening state” again in 2021 however who hasn’t appeared to listen to something.
