US observers: Election process more important than results

Kazakhstan Central Election Commission Chairman met with a delegation of American experts, Tengrinews.kz reported. After the meeting Richard Weitz, Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute, said that the experts received full information about the elections process. “It was a very useful and transparent discussion, all our questions were answered,” he said. The American experts’ observation goal is to make sure that all the candidates have an equal opportunity to publicize their programs and that no state authorities interfere with the election campaigns, said Weitz. He regretted that “there are no public debates. It would have been better if the candidates had an opportunity to express themselves.” “We were told that all the candidates refused to take part in pre-election political debates. Open debates are very important. Opinions are important, as well as getting to know these people, who are the politicians for the future. Politics doesn’t stop at elections, but continues after them. It would have been useful for the future parliamentary elections,” said Margarita Assenova, the Executive director of the Institute for New Democracies. Observers from the United States said that the elections results are not as important for them as the process itself. “Everyone knows the result of this election, but we want to see the process itself: to see that every candidate has an equal time in the media. I think that we are here to observe the election process and we hope to see some progress, to see that this time it is better than last time and that it gets even better in future,” Richard Weitz said. “We don’t have the resources like the OSCE does. Their assessment will be major and large-scaled. Our assessment will cover several regions but won’t be as broad as the OSCE’s. We want to look at the coming elections in terms of development of a young democratic republic,” said Margarita Assenova.