Kazakhstan is not ready for presidential-parliamentary rule: Vice-Provost of Nazarbayev University

The presidency institute has to be separated from any specific individual, but Kazakhstan is not yet ready for such model, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Vice-Provost of Nazarbayev University and a visiting professor from the U.S. Howard Schweber as saying at the international conference called Presidency institutions in establishment of the independent Kazakhstan. “There are different strategies of enhancing security and stability in the country via a democratic deal. And the key is, of course, that the presidency institution has to be separated from any specific person. Probably, Kazakhstan is not ready for this transition yet. Looking at the presidency institution today, we admit that its most important feature and unique qualities emerged during Nazarbayev’s presidency,” Schweber said. However, according to him, the country has the conditions for further transition and development of the presidency institutions themselves and that makes Kazakhstan more successful compared to some of its neighbors. “If we look at the post-Soviet world, we will see that there are many reasons to be happy about and to value the presidency, as there is a guarantee that it will keep developing,” professor said. According to Schweber, measurement of Kazakhstan’s success in the presidency institution in the transition period is frequently called a democratic deal by experts. “This is the name of the phenomenon that shows that if any of the candidates loses the presidential race, he will accept the results, as these results reflect the system in general and this is much more important than personal interests. And in case of such democratic deal, the candidate will know that he can take this seat in future, as the system works and it is important that there are no destructive forces that can influence development of this system. And in this case nobody will seriously doubt that this system is legitimate and stable,” he said. He added that the system is based also on people’s trust and there is a real accountability. And even in case a “wrong” candidate becomes president, the system will be replaced with the parliamentary-presidential one. According to the experts, constant transformation is a unique advantage of Kazakhstan’s presidency model. “It is very important to note that almost everything in Kazakhstan is changing and almost everything is on a stage of transition to something more advanced. There is a system here that everyone understands and the current situation is absolutely different from the one 20 or 30 years ago. This is very unique. A majority of the systems of post-Soviet countries, they do not involve a transition,” professor said. By Aidana Ussupova