KAZAKHSTAN 2015 ELECTIONS: THE LESSONS OF A DEMOCRATIC EXERCISE by Professor Dr. Anton Caragea MA, FINS, PhD

Supervising the elections in any country in the world is a momentous and difficult task and not to be taken lightly.

You have to observe the present, but with responsibility for the future and impartiality in your heart.

Professor Dr. Anton Caragea supervising election in Kazakhstan-26 April 2015

If you are supervising elections in Kazakhstan, the heart of Central Asia, the task is doubled in significance, as Kazakhstan has become an example in the world.

 

Kazakhstan has carved himself in the centre of international politics, the host of international meetings destined to bring peace and dialogue in the world, the place where technology and tradition meets and the mediator between developed and developing countries, a place where East and West can build a bridge for dialogue.

Observing elections in such a key country it is an honourable and full of seriousness assignment.

For all this reasons, the invitation offered to me, on behalf of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, to observe the elections in the country, as an international observer, was a very challenging one, but nothing has prepared me for the phenomenon I was about to witness.

In Kazakhstan, on 26 of April 2015 I was witnessing the maturity exam of a people.

Born only in 1991, on the ruins of former Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was a young nation, a country only developing his democratic institutions and credentials.

After the early presidential elections held on 26 April 2015, we can safely conclude that this stage was phased out.

With a record presence at poll, of over 95%, people of Kazakhstan proved, without a shadow of a doubt, their commitment to free and fair elections, to build and uphold a democratic society.

While other nations are struggling to bring their electors to the urns and millions of voters disappointed by corruption and state inefficiency are feeling disenfranchised, in developing Kazakhstan millions of electors proved that democracy is not just an empty word to find in the political text books, but a living reality.

I have the pleasure of seeing the people of Kazakhstan taken their future in their hands and voting for their future development, for practical solutions, for experience to weather out the economic storm that is rummaging the world.

The elections in Kazakhstan where not just a democratic exercise, but they where the proof that the peoples power really exist and if the citizens are feeling involved in the economic, social and cultural life of their country, if the state is not failing them and provides the social benefits expected the people will respond partaking in the electoral process.

In the economic and political failed states of the world we can see the reduction of election attendance, the disinterest of the citizens and the broken down of the social contract that Rousseau and French revolutionaries had considered as the fundamentals of the state.

 Professor Dr. Anton Caragea meets the international press in Almaty, unveiling the election monitoring mission results

 

Kazakhstan state is honouring his social contract with his citizens and the response is this huge electoral participation.

95% electoral attendance can be a mystery in states where citizens are isolated and oppressed, but this is a reality in a functional nation.

In Kazakhstan, the 2015 elections where a national plebiscite in which the people decided above anything else their future.

I have observed this reality as hundreds of thousand of peoples turn out to vote accompanied by children’s and small infants, as they realized that it is not so much a vote for next few years, but a vote for future, for peace, for continuous democratic development and economic achievements.

Kazakhstan’s 2015 elections where undoubtedly democratic in nature, where fair and crystal clear transparent and where offering a few refreshing news for everybody.

On the fore is the news that democracy can be a real practice, can involve a nation that is educated and convinced of his role in history.

At the same time it was proven the fact that: governments and peoples are not confrontational actors on political arena, but they can cooperate to build a powerful country.

26 of April 2015 early presidential elections of Kazakhstan where the irrefutable proof of this self evident truth: that democracy can only work when all the people are involved.