Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan's presidential election has been moved forward from December 2012 to April 3 2011, and we expect the incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev to cruise to victory. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Europe's leading vote-monitoring group, has already expressed concern that the election will be neither free nor fair, since key recommendations made following prior elections have not been implemented. We see the 70-year old Nazarbayev remaining in power beyond the election, and see little threat to policy stability for the months ahead. However, the longer-term political outlook is less clear, given the President's lack of clear successor.

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