Establishing a dominant party has been seen as an effective way for the dictator to make ‚credible inter-temporal power-sharing deals with elite opponents‛ (Magaloni & Kricheli, 2010: 127). Making his commitment visible, establishing a political party is a way for the dictator to make his power-sharing deals with elites more credible and, therefore, to correct this situation (Magaloni, 2006, 2008).
A fundamental assumption of this theory is the position of relative strength of potentially competitive elite groups: they should be strong enough to have some resources and to have a
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potential for defection, but still be in a relatively weaker position, compared to the ruler (Magaloni, 2008). The ability from both sides to ‚punish the other party if it decides to deviate from the joint-government arrangement‛ seems in fact particularly relevant in making this kind of bargaining possible and effective (Boix & Svolik, 2008: 2 in Magaloni & Kricheli, 2010: 127).
This assumption makes the application of this model problematic for Kazakhstan, where the power structure has a different balance. In this case, the relation between the centre and other elite groupings is heavily skewed in favour of the former. Moreover, this relationship is not likely to be mediated through the party. The party exists, and appears as a dominant actor in the electoral arena as well as in the legislature. But, as we have seen before, its power is limited when it comes to key decisions. The real power relations are to be looked elsewhere, in the informal sphere (family, clan, client-network relations between these centres).
The party of power and the party system as a whole still have an important regime-supporting function. We can call it, rather than of ‚elite coordination‛, a function of ‚elite management‛. The party landscape in Kazakhstan is currently characterized by the presence of several parties which are formally independent but actually support the President and his program, while they manage to advance the agenda of their leader. They are all more or less connected to the power elites: real opposition is instead marginalized and in some cases relegated to extra-institutional forms of opposition (interviews, Kosanov 2011 and Satpayev 2011; see also Isaacs 2011).
Party of Power Pro-Regime / “Loyal Opposition” Parties Opposition Parties
Nur Otan* Ak Zhol*
People’s Communist Party of Kazakhstan*
Social Democratic Party ‚Auyl‛
Party of Patriots
The Green Party ‚Rukhaniyat‛
Democratic Party ‚Adilet‛
OSDP-Azat
Communist Party of Kazakhstan
‚Alga‛ (not registered)
Table 5.2 Party Landscape in Kazakhstan (Sources: interview, Kosanov 2011; Isaacs 2011) *are currently Parliamentary Parties
In the 1990s and early 2000s there were even more of these parties, formed by elite members to represent and protect their interests83. For the asymmetric nature of the power structure, though, they did not (and do not) represent a threat for the ruling elite or for the party of power. Actually, whenever a potentially dangerous actor entered the political scene, it was eliminated, often by changing the rules of the game, as it was seen in chapters 3 and 4.
A certain degree of competition, though, is tolerated, and actually encouraged. As Satpayev notes, this gives an impression of openness and, at the same time, by competing with each other, different pressure groups, represented by parties, balance each other and prevent each other from becoming excessively powerful. Instead of having one, dangerous, rival, the President has to deal with a large group of ambitious players, who compete with each other. The President acts as an arbiter between them: now he offers assistance to one, now to another, but he remains above the political competition (interview, Satpayev 2011).
Interestingly enough, the elite groups who engage in party competition fight for the favour of the President, knowing that he is the only source of real power in the country.
The impression is actually that the President periodically encourages these competitions, in order to keep the system in a condition of equilibrium, with forces balancing each other. The rise of Asar and the political involvement of Dariga Nazarbayeva in 2002-2003, for instance, were in part caused by the repeated declarations of the President about his upcoming retirement,
83 Drawing on the literature on post Soviet parties, Isaacs calls these parties ‚elite
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which gave the impression that there would be an opening for succession (interview, Beshimov, 2011).
The party system works, thus, as an arena, where political parties affiliated to various elite groupings fight with each other as sorts of avatars. Just like Nur Otan, which is only the reflection of the centre of political power in the electoral and legislative field, other parties reflect the influence and strength of other segments of the elite. And this is done not only to the benefit of international observers, or of the domestic electorate: by competing in the party arena, the elite groupings have a chance to try their chances in a controlled way, without openly challenging the leader. Actually, in this way they manage to get closer to the leader and to the system of privileges that is associated with the highest circle.
This is true even for some of the political formations that later have been labelled as ‚opposition‛, like the DVK movement: the goal of its leaders, powerful businessmen in their respective sectors, was apparently to ‚make some noise and get back to their positions more powerful‛. For their admission, they ‚ended up where nobody would have expected to‛ (Kuttykadam, 2010: 144).
This strategy of allowing a certain degree of competition while steering it in the desired direction reminds what has been called ‚managed pluralism‛ referring to the control of the political system established by Putin in the early 2000s (Balzer, 2003). While, comparatively, the Kazakhstani system is more of a closed one, Nazarbayev, like Putin, allows a certain degree of openness and competition while focusing all the restraining efforts on the most strategic sectors and making sure that these expressions of pluralism do not get too independent.
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It is a suitable strategy for a regime developing in the ‚soft authoritarian‛ direction, because it allows maintaining the effective control of the system while gaining on the side of international image as well as of internal legitimacy.