Kazakhstan?s lawmakers approved amendments to the Law on Elections

WASHINGTON. January 21. KAZINFORM On January 15, 2008 Kazakhstan?s lawmakers approved amendments to the Law on elections. The amendments were the result of the year-long joint effort of various NGOs, political parties, OSCE institutions and the Government of Kazakhstan. The amended draft of the law was submitted for the President?s approval.

The amended legislation stipulates several important changes that might have a considerable effect on the political life of the country. Lawmakers have approved measures to streamline the registration of political parties. The number of enlisted members required to register a party will be lowered by 20%, including a minimum of 600 signatories from each province in the country. The amendments make it mandatory for the media to maintain an equal coverage of candidates and parties during electoral campaigns, including the period of nomination and registration. According to the new legislation, foreign observers, who usually come in thousands to observe elections in Kazakhstan, are not required now to have any relevant experience to monitor electoral process. The process of issuing absentee ballots will be more strictly regulated by the Central Election Commission. Local election commissions will have greater authority and independence in organizing electoral processes on the ground, such as determining their schedules to make them more convenient for the voters. The work on amendments began in May 2007, when Kazakhstan launched a major constitutional reform and announced a gradual move from a strong presidential form of rule towards a presidential-parliamentary system with more powers going to the elected national legislature. At the advice of the OSCE, the old constituent-based electoral system was replaced by the new party-list-based system. However, the first parliamentary elections (under the newly introduced system) that took place in August, 2007 turned out to be rather a mixed success with only one party winning seats in the Parliament. The major unanticipated downside of the new electoral system was the lack of legislated mechanisms to ensure that the parties which do not have a strong public support and cannot go over the required threshold of 7 percent receive seats in the Parliament. The approved amendments to the election law tackle this problem as well. Now a multiparty parliament is mandated by legislation. If the 7% threshold is received by one political party only, then the corresponding amendment mandates that a party which comes second in the elections receives seats in the Parliament as well. Thus, Kazakhstan is following the established European tradition of maintaining electoral thresholds to encourage political competition (3% ? Spain, Italy; 4% ? Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden; 5% ? Hungary, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, France, Czech Republic; 7% ? Russia, Lithuania (party blocks); 8% ? Poland (coalitions), Lichtenstein, Romania (party unions); 10% ? Italy (coalitions), Turkey). Kazakhstan will keep working closely with the OSCE and its other partners to continue perfecting its legislation, Kazinform refers to the News Bulletin of the Kazakhstan Embassy in the USA.