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Kazakh Leader Nazarbayev Gets Immunity, Power to Rule for Life

by mtippett | June 15, 2010 at 09:33 pm

321 views | 4 Recommendations | 1 comment

I recently visited Kazakhstan for the Eurasian Media Forum. A central message of the conference was that the country was proud of the freedom that the local press enjoyed. This latest development is somewhat disturbing. We will have to wait and see what the impact will be on journalists who don't comply with the rule.

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Nursultan Nazarbayev became Kazakhstan’s “leader of the nation,” with immunity from prosecution for life and the power to dictate policy after retirement, as a law that he refused to sign took effect.
Lawmakers in both houses of parliament unanimously voted to grant Nazarbayev the title, which also makes his property and that of his family inviolable. The president, who turns 70 in July, refused to sign the law in an open letter and thanked his supporters for the gesture.

Yet under Kazakh law, bills that the president doesn’t sign nevertheless become law within a month if he doesn’t send them back to parliament to be reworked. The law was published today in Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, the government’s newspaper of record.

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t k kidwai

at 05:32 on June 16th, 2010

We,the people in the East, behave in a different sordid manner to express our loyalty to an individual.Loyalty to an individual gets prominence over loyalty to an idea,a good cause or principle.

In the Indian sub-continent Mrs.Indira Gandhi was PM only because her father was first PM of India after power was transferred to Indian rulers,Rajiv Gandhi because he was son of Indira gandhi,and his son is likely to be next PM,if every thing goes well with plans of her mother and loyalists.Benazir's support base in Pakistan was loyalists to her father,Z.A.Bhutto,and Bangladesh's PM is PM because she is duaghter of founder and first PM of Bangla Desh.

In Syria after death of Hafiz Al-Asad his aon was elected president and even constitution was amended to make him qualified by reducing the required minimum age limit of the president.