Cheney: Sod democracy - they got oil!

UPI: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, on a visit to oil-rich Kazakhstan, lavished praise on its autocratic anti-democratic regime, The Washington Post reported.

Cheney Friday stood beside Kazakhstan's longtime President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a marble hall of the presidential palace in Astana, congratulating him on his country's vibrant economy.

Cheney's remarks contrasted with those he made in Lithuania the day before, accusing Moscow of violating citizens' rights and using "intimidation or blackmail" against its neighbors.

Instead, he professed "great respect" for Nazarbayev, a former member of the Soviet Politburo who took over as head of Kazakhstan in 1990 and has stayed in office through elections that international monitors have said were neither free nor fair.

Kazakhstan's opposition party, Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, was liquidated last year, and authorities refused to register two other opposition parties.

The government has closed newspapers and seized print runs while using tax, immigration and other investigations to harass non-governmental organizations.

Oil has dominated U.S. relations with Kazakhstan for years. Kazakhstan exports 1 million barrels of oil a day and hopes to boost production to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2015, rivaling Iran, the newspaper reported. Link

wikipedia: Nursultan Nazarbayev is the current leader of Kazakhstan. He has been in office since 1990, and was the leader of the Kazakh SSR under Mikhail Gorbachev. He was originally elected to a term of service of only four years, but in 1998 wrote a decree to keep himself in power for at least 7 more years. His latest election has been condemned by the OSCE as falling short of international democratic standards.

... Domestically, he has adopted a policy similar to China's in that he is pursuing capitalist economic development without political liberalization, sometimes resulting in draconian policies and harsh clampdowns on dissent, including the disqualifications of electoral opponents and the muzzling of the press, which ncidentally is controlled by his daughter, Dariga Nursultanovna Nazarbayeva...On 4 December 2005, new Presidential elections were held, and President Nazarbayev won by an overwhelming majority of 91.15% (from a total of 6871571 eligible participating voters) as reported by the Central Electoral Commission of Kazakhstan. This outcome would be subject to criticism by the OSCE. Nazarbayev was sworn in for another seven-year term on 11 January 2006.

Nazarbayev has been largely criticised for his authoritative style of leadership. Beginning with the formation of the DCK (Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan) in November 2001 by Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, Muhtar Ablyazov, and Oraz Zhandosov, a split in the future of the political ideology in Kazakhstan materialized. Recent killings of two prominent opposition leaders, Zamanbek Nurkadylov in November 2005 and Altynbek Sarsenbayev in February 2006, have fueled the controversy.Link