TARAZ, Kazakhstan, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's face stares down from scores of billboards in the old silk-road town of Taraz, evidence of his claim to unquestioned power even after the calm of the Central Asian state was shaken by an Islamist attack and a mutiny by oil workers.
No-one doubts Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party will win Sunday’s parliamentary elections by a landslide. But for the first time, the second-placed party will automatically be guaranteed seats in the chamber, a concession unlikely to weaken the veteran leader’s grip on power.
‘You are the one and only independent Kazakhstan,’ reads one poster in Taraz exalting Nazarbayev. Another urges citizens to learn the state language, Kazakh, in a country where Russian is still more familiar to millions.
In a city now synonymous with a rampage last November by an Islamist militant who killed seven and blew himself up, most people still trust Nazarbayev to enforce security and prevent any spread of violence akin to that in nearby states.
"Everywhere around us there are wars. We don’t want one here," said medical assistant Sholpan Tulendiyeva, 35, visiting a bazaar where many locals make a living trading textiles and shoes imported from China and Turkey.
At 71, Nazarbayev, ruler of Kazakhstan since Soviet times, has no clear successor. He has prized economic growth and stability over democratic reforms, showing little tolerance for dissent. His most strident critics live in exile.
While many of Kazakhstan’s 16.7 million people demand a bigger slice of the wealth generated by plentiful oil resources, and perhaps more democracy than Sunday’s election will offer, confidence in Nazarbayev appears unshaken in this southern town.
As Nazarbayev ages, his name is more exalted. December 1 has been declared a public holiday, "The Day of the First President". Scientists who discovered a new hydrocarbon cluster have applied to name the mineral Nurnazen in his honour.
Almaty-based author Roza Akbolatova has penned a series of fairy tales, six so far, depicting Nazarbayev as a modern-day legend. Her books share shelf space in the book stores with the works of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.
"Such people are chosen. They don’t arrive in this world by chance," Akbolatova said.
Neither can they last forever. With no clear succession plan, some fear Kazakhstan might be saving up problems for another day. The December riots in the far western oil-producing region of Mangistau were a stark illustration of the dangers.
The president’s reaction to the clashes between riot police and protesters, during which officials say 17 people were killed, was to replace younger officials — including his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev — with trusted hardliners.
Nazarbayev picked out Kulibayev, the investors’ favourite to succeed him, as the scapegoat by removing him from the top job at Samruk-Kazyna, the $90 billion sovereign wealth fund that ultimately owns the companies where sacked oilmen had protested.
"Investors are concerned by the recent reshuffle and about the ‘old guard’ being at the forefront. They are eager to see Kazakhstan continue on a more open trajectory," said Kate Mallinson, senior analyst at political risk consultants GPW.
‘WE DON’T WANT WAR’
Kyrgyzstan, scene of a revolution and ethnic bloodshed in the last two years, lies just across the border. The economy in Tajikistan, where tens of thousands were killed in a civil war in the 1990s, is propped up by remittances from migrant workers.
"Another neighbour is Turkmenistan, where stability is ensured by methods that look like savagery to us," said Yuri Yefimov, 45, an ethnic Russian resident of Taraz. "In a sense, Kazakhstan is an example for the entire CIS."
The mosque and the Russian Orthodox cathedral stand next to each other in Taraz. "Thank God, we have been living in peace," said an Orthodox priest who identified himself as Father Pyotr.
In election manifesto posters, Nur Otan pledges to raise per capita GDP to $15,000 by 2017. It has already grown to more than $11,000, comparable with Turkey or Mexico, from $700 in 1993 — a favourite statistic of Nazarbayev’s in recent speeches.
But the administration admits cracks have appeared in its economic policy, a fact it was no longer able to ignore after the Mangistau riots.
"We have gone through 20 years of stable market reforms. At the same time, there has been a wild acquisition and accumulation of capital, to use a Marxist term," presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said.
"Now is the time of social reckoning. We have to sober up."
NOD TO DEMOCRACY
While one aim of bringing the vote forward from August is to install a new government to tackle a looming economic crisis, Kazakhstan also wants to boost its democratic credentials. It has never held a vote judged free and fair by Western monitors.
In a gesture in keeping with his outspoken support for the oil workers of Mangistau, he overruled a decision by the constitutional council to cancel polling in the riot-hit town of Zhanaozen, where a state of emergency remains in place.
Changes to electoral law will admit the second-placed party to a chamber where Nur Otan members fill every elected seat, regardless of whether it clears the 7 percent entry threshold.
This concession is not lost on politicians wary of the mass protests that greeted a disputed election in Russia, still Kazakhstan’s biggest trading partner and a key cultural reference point for millions of Russian-speaking citizens.
But while a nominal opposition is guaranteed — likely to be the pro-business Ak Zhol party, whose membership has swollen to become the second-largest political force in the country — the most vehement critics of Nazarbayev have been sidelined again.
The Communist Party has been suspended, foiling a plan to forge an election-day alliance with the fiercely critical Alga! party, which has consistently failed to secure registration.
Election officials also removed prominent opposition figure Bolat Abilov from his party’s list for inaccurate disclosure of income and property, barring him from parliament even in the unlikely event his Social Democrats were to place second.
"They don’t want to see representatives of civil society in government; people who will raise awkward questions and speak the truth," Abilov said.
Controls have gradually been tightened. A religion law banning prayer rooms in state institutions was pushed through in October. A new broadcast law approved by the Senate last month will subject foreign television channels to closer scrutiny.
"I hope for freedom of speech, pluralism of opinion and that those in power will listen to the masses," said Askhat Ibrahimov, head lawyer for the Taraz branch of a nationwide bank. He said he would vote for Ak Zhol.
He also said he "fully supports the president’s policies".
Therein lies the paradox. Democratic or not, the election will not shift the balance of power. The way Nazarbayev handles the tests to his rule, and the composition of the government he chooses to help, will provide the clues to Kazakhstan’s future.
