Kazakh elections slammed as flawed

OPPOSITION leaders called for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s election victory to be declared invalid, while Western-led observers said the vote that gave him 91% support was flawed.

Similar criticisms by international observer missions were key in establishing an air of legitimacy for mass protests that helped bring opposition leaders to power in the other former Soviet states of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past two years.

But in oil-rich Kazakhstan, as in Azerbaijan’s contested parliamentary elections last month, the opposition’s options appeared to be limited by the comparatively authoritarian regimes under which they live.