Kazakhstan
Country in central Asia, bounded N by Russia, W by the Caspian Sea,
E by China, and S by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Government
The 1995 constitution provides for a limited presidential executive
system. There is a 67-member lower chamber, the Majlis, and an
elected upper house or senate. Members of the Majlis are elected
for a four-year term by the second-ballot majoritarian system
and are prohibited from declaring any party affiliation. Supreme
executive power is held by the president, who is popularly elected
to serve a five-year term and must have a knowledge of Kazakh.
The president works with a cabinet (council of ministers) whose
head is effectively prime minister.
History
There were violent nationalist riots in the capital, Almaty, Dec 1986
when the long-serving Kazakh Communist Party (KCP) leader Dinmukahmed
Kunayev was effectively sacked by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
and replaced by an ethnic Russian. In June 1989 Nursultan Nazarbayev,
a ` reform communist´ in favour of nationalism, assumed leadership
of the KCP and in Feb 1990 became the republic's president. He
embarked on a pragmatic programme of cultural and market- centred
economic reform, involving the privatization of the services and
housing sectors. During the spring of 1991 President Nazarbayev
pressed for the signing of a new USSR Union Treaty and opposed
the Aug 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev in Moscow, describing
it as `illegal and unconstitutional´. Soon after the coup was
thwarted, the KCP was abolished. However, Nazarbayev played a
key role in ensuring that the `uncontrolled disintegration´ of
the USSR was averted and that non- Slav republics joined the new
Commonwealth of Independent States, formed Dec 1991 at Almaty.
Kazakhstan's independence was recognized by the USA Dec 1991;
in March 1992 it joined the United Nations (UN). Kazakhstan inherited
substantial nuclear weapons from the USSR and the Nazarbayev administration
pledged to gradually remove these, commencing 1992 with tactical
weapons. A new constitution was adopted Jan 1993, increasing the
authority of the president and making Kazakh the state language.
Mass privatizations began Nov 1993 and joint-venture agreements
were signed with foreign companies to develop the nation's immense
gas, oil, and uranium reserves. The republic ratified START-1
and the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty Dec 1993. In 1994 it
entered into an economic, social, and military union with neighbouring
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, providing for free movement of goods,
services, capital, and labour between the states. The republic
achieved nuclear-free status 1995.
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