Democracy cannot be imposed: Kazakh Senate Speaker Tokayev

The Speaker of the Senate of the Parliament of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has presented his vision of the changes needed to ensure global sustainable development, Tengrinews reported from the international conference "A new paradigm of sustainable human development. G-Global – a format for global dialogue" held in Almaty on November 5.

Chairman of the Kazakh Senate Tokayev stressed that new challenges call for a new paradigm of global development, whereby equality and mutual respect are the guiding principles of international relations. Tokayev offered ten theses:

The first one is that the very essence of economic activities should be corrected to shift the focus away from quantitative growth to improvement of the quality of people’s lives and development of science, education and culture.

The second one involves revaluation of the threat posed by the humanity to the environment, especially since people are using up natural resources twice as fast as they can regenerate, Tokayev said.

Development of human capital is the third principle of global development, the Speaker continued.

The fourth thesis deals with the widening gap between the rich and the poor, a situation exacerbated by corruption.

Tokayev’s fifth point is about the growing population of the Earth. It is predicted that by 2100 the world population would increase from 7 to 12.5 billion, meaning that rational use of agricultural resources is necessary to prevent hunger and shortages of drinking water.

The next argument says that all the cultures are equally important for the global civilization.

The seventh principle sees a complete departure from the all-out competition that pits people, economies and countries against each other.

The eighth thesis envisages creation of a new world order capable of addressing the future security threats. "The world is constantly changing, and the UN Charter has "frozen" in the same form as it was adopted 69 years ago," Tokayev said.

The fight against terrorism and extremism in order to prevent the emergence of civilizational faults is the ninth point Tokayev mentioned.

And, finally, the closing remarks dealt with the need to maintain internal political stability. "Experience shows that democracy, as a rule guarantees stability. But democratization is an evolutionary process that cannot be artificially accelerated, let alone imposed,” Tokayev said.

“It is necessary to take into account the historical experience, cultural specifics and national mentality of every particular country. The experiences of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt all show that it is necessary to approach building of democracy more thoughtfully and with full responsibility, exercise patience and politically sensitivity," Tokayev said.
 
Reporting by Dmitry Khegai, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina