Regime Stability and the Effect of Elections: A Case Study of Kazakhstan
By Matthew Chakov
Introduction
Authoritarian regimes are known for many things: ostentatious dictators, human rights abuses, crackdowns on dissent--but not for elections. Although typically associated with liberal democracies, elections are held even in authoritarian countries like Syria or even North Korea.[i] While this may seem counter-intuitive, they do serve an important purpose.
This purpose can be delineated by looking at a little-discussed country in Central Asia, the Republic of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s history has been characterized by relatively high regime stability since the country’s inception – in large part due to their elections.[ii]
Since its breakaway from the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Kazakhstan has weathered economic, social, and political turmoil, but the country has still remained relatively stable throughout.[iii] Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president, has remained in power since the country gained its independence.[iv] His long tenure as leader could be attributed to many different aspects of the country and its makeup, but perhaps the most important factor to Kazakhstan’s continued stability are their elections and how they have contributed to a stable (albeit authoritarian) Kazakhstan since the country’s formal independence. Elections are important to regime stability because they project legitimacy both to the country’s own populace and other nations around the world. Such demonstrations reduce the threat of internal uprisings and external interference. For a country like Kazakhstan, the reputation gained from elections can keep the regime stable for decades.
The Election that Wasn’t
Despite its authoritarian government, Kazakhstan holds presidential elections approximately every five years.[v] Nazarbayev has won every single one of these. To get a taste of the margins that Nazarbayev is used to winning by, in the 2015 presidential election, the country’s most recent election, Nazarbayev won with an eyebrow-raising 97.7 percent of the vote to clinch his fifth successive term as president.[vi]
Any election with such high margins for victory should be cause for suspicion. Hundreds of observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe or (OSCE), an intergovernmental organization dedicated to fair elections, monitored the election and its run-up. They determined that the contest was “largely indiscernible, lacked competitiveness and appeared to generate negligible public interest.”[vii]
This assessment by the OSCE casts Kazakhstan and their electoral process in a negative light. It is clear that this election was a sham, so much so that it does not really even deserve to be called an election but rather just performance. Much like how everybody knows the Harlem Globetrotters are going to win before they begin a basketball game, everybody in the world knew Nazarbayev was going to win before the campaign even ended.
So what is even the point of having an election if it does not affect who governs? For authoritarian regimes, elections contribute to regime stability by conveying legitimacy to both Kazakhstan’s citizens and other countries around the world. In Kazakhstan, these sham elections have strengthened Nazarbayev’s authority, allowing him to stay in power for more than two and a half decades.
Two-Pronged Regime Stability in Kazakhstan
An authoritarian country can use elections as a signal that both the current government still has a mandate and that strong internal opposition will not be tolerated. This rings especially true in Kazakhstan where Nazarbayev uses elections to cement his power at the first suggestion of economic and political unrest.
In early 2015, Kazakhstan faced an impending economic slump for a variety of geopolitical and economic reasons.[viii] Nazarbayev swiftly took action, pushing up an election scheduled for April to February, hoping to preempt any future opposition.[ix] Perhaps Nazarbayev was fearful of a repeat of what has now become known as the Zhanaozen Massacre of 2011—an event in which the government killed dozens of individuals protesting low wages and lack of union and labor rights.[x]
Not only are elections important for ensuring regime stability internally, but elections can ensure regime stability externally because they indicate to the world that the government and its leader maintains a mandate, and elections also allow other countries to save face when they support an authoritarian country. This principle can be observed in Kazakhstan with Nazarbayev’s prioritization of his image and the image of his country that is projected to the world. He understands the significance of elections to Kazakhstan’s external regime stability, and the importance of the support of western nations like the United States; with their support comes benefits like additional foreign investment which is important for economic success.[xi][xii]
Before the 1999 presidential elections in Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev placed advertisements in newspapers in the US that extolled their country’s political accomplishments.[xiii] In an Op-Ed published in the Financial Times before the 2015 presidential election, Nazarbayev bragged about the 2015 campaign, pretending the election outcome was not basically pre-determined.[xiv] He said in the op-ed that the 2015 “campaign is allowing the country to debate the choices it faces, to forge consensus and will give the newly elected president a clear mandate,” and that aforementioned mandate would “require the elections to be open, transparent and fair.”[xv]
Furthermore, these elections allow western nations and companies to save face as they kept Kazakhstan as a strategic partner and target for investment. After the 2015 election, President Barack Obama, a strong proponent for liberal democracy, congratulated Nazarbayev on his election and said that he was looking forward to working with him on future issues.[xvi]
Conclusion
Kazakhstan is an important case study for an authoritarian country where elections contribute to regime stability. However, some academics do not agree that holding elections leads to greater regime stability for all authoritarian countries. According to the Peace Research Institute, elections can be destabilizing because of massive protests or coup d’etats that can result.[xvii] Thus, elections are a kind of “double-edged sword” that can hurt in the short-run, but contribute to their stability in the long run.[xviii] In Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev’s fixed elections help create long term stability by projecting legitimacy to the world, as well as to the country’s own people. Nazarbayev’s internal popularity and tight grip around the public help him to avoid potential coup d’etats and protests—dangerous consequences of the elections that he is always sure to win.
Kazakhstan exemplifies how strong states can strategically use elections to maintain regime stability. Nazarbayev uses elections to both pull the wool over the eyes of the West to keep the country’s abuses out of the spotlight while simultaneously maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with governments and corporations alike. Kazakhstan’s distinctive elections can be looked to as models or case studies for other authoritarian regimes that desire the same stability that the relatively obscure Central Asian country has already achieved.
Bibliography
[i] Tlemcani, Rachid. "Electoral Authoritarianism." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. May 29, 2007. https://carnegieendowment.org/2007/05/29/electoral-authoritarianism-pub-19176.
[ii] Stronski, Paul. "Kazakhstan at Twenty-Five: Stable but Tense." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. February 4, 2016. https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/04/kazakhstan-at-twenty-five-stable-but-tense-pub-62642.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Olcott, Martha Brill. Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (2). Washington DC, US: Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace, 2010. ProQuest ebrary, Page 28.
[v] "Kazakh 'Rerun:' A Brief History Of Kazakhstan's Presidential Elections." RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. March 10, 2015. https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-brief-history-of-presidential-elections/26890276.html.
[vi] Roth, Andrew. "Kazakhstan's President Is Re-elected by Almost Every Voter." The New York Times. April 27, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/world/asia/nursultan-a-nazarbayev-kazakhstan-re-elected.html.
[vii] “Kazakhstan, Early Presidential Election, 26 April 2015: Final Report,” Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. July 29, 2015. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/kazakhstan/174811?download=true. Page 2.
[viii] Roth, Andrew. "Kazakhstan President Set to Win Fifth Term, Even as Economy Falters." The New York Times. April 26, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/world/asia/kazakhstan-president-nursultan-nazarbayev-election.html?module=inline.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Jailani, Y. (2016). THE LOOSENING OF A STRONGHOLD: ECONOMIC PRESSURE ON KAZAKHSTAN'S DICTATORSHIP. Harvard International Review, 38(1), Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1906058143?accountid=10267.
[xi] Olcott, Martha Brill. Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (2). Page 88.
[xii] Ibid., Pages 128-129.
[xiii] Ibid., Page 88.
[xiv] Nazarbayev, Nursultan. "Under Shadow of Hostility and Distrust, Kazakhstan Faces Tough Choices." Financial Times. April 24, 2015. https://www.ft.com/content/d087b2bf-f639-3a2c-9654-75ac4b91801f.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Alimkulkov, Bulat. "Obama Recommits to Working with Nazarbayev in New Term." The Astana Times. April 29, 2015. https://astanatimes.com/2015/04/obama-recommits-to-working-with-nazarbayev-in-new-term/.
[xvii] Knutsen, Carl Henrik, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, and Tore Wig. "You'd Think Dictators Would Avoid Elections. Here's Why They Don't." The Washington Post. March 14, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/14/youd-think-dictators-would-avoid-elections-heres-why-they-dont/?utm_term=.751f96aa4a0c.
[xviii] Ibid.