US Lukewarm on Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Reforms

RFE/RL has a very brief story on US Secretary of State Spokesman Sean McCormack’s response to questions during yesterday’s State Department daily press briefing regarding the US position on Kazakhstan’s recently passed constitutional reforms. He said that the reforms are on balance a step in the right direction, but that the US certainly would have hoped for something different.

The transcript of the press briefing actually has quite a bit more on the situation. I found this exchange in particular to be interesting:

QUESTION: Sean, I don’t know how you read this decision the other day, but I read the statement they issued and it sounds exactly like the Soviet statements used to sound back in — during the early Cold War. How can you possibly support reforms that are — because they’re sort of democratic but through the prism of one same person? I mean, there’s no opposition in that country, there’s no tolerance of opposition or different views. How can you support that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, again — and I’m happy to get you a breakdown and description of all the things that were passed in the constitutional reforms. Look, I’ll admit right up front, is the state of political reform in Kazakhstan exactly what we would have hoped? No, it’s not. But they’re going to have to deal with these issues on their own terms. We’re not going to impose it on them. We’re not going to lay out the template for them and say: You have to follow this exact path to Kazakh democracy. It’s not the way it works.

We, as well as the Europeans, have been working very closely with them to urge them in the right direction. It’s not going to happen all at once, and the important thing is that we are — we do have a good discussion with them. And we believe we have some form of commitment for them — from them to work together on how Kazakhstan could move along the pathway to political reform so they can also realize a different kind of relationship with the rest of the world.

McCormack later said that the US wants pluralistic democracy, but that it must emerge from Kazakh society. And that will take time.

He’s not wrong, and the message that the US supports evolutionary rather than revolutionary moves toward democracy is one that State Department officials need to be making more clearly and often.

Still though, I stand by my earlier assessment of the reforms as not really creating the institutions needed for democracy. If they’re a step in the right direction, then they’re not much of one. But they seem to have been enough to make the US government more or less happy, so perhaps they will help the OSCE chairmanship bid.

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Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.

Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.