Article 23 of the Kazakh Constitution guarantees citizens the right to the freedom of association. “However, in practice, we have encountered a situation where this right has become virtually unattainable,” Meiram Kazhyken, leader of the unregistered YNTYMAQ political party, wrote in a recent appeal to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Kazhyken recounted that YNTYMAQ had twice submitted documents to register as a political party, and twice been refused. He wrote that the refusals were “based on easily rectifiable remarks.” The group, he said, then turned to established a public association – “ULT YNTYMAǦY” – “as an alternative form of participation in public life” and met with 22 refusals.
In a March 2022 speech – two months after more than 230 people were killed during widespread unrest in early January – Tokayev unveiled his grand plan for a “New Kazakhstan.” He proposed a bevy of initiatives, including expanding “Opportunities for the Development of the Party System.”
“The course towards building a New Kazakhstan is based on the need to ensure fair and free political competition. To achieve this, we must create the most favorable environment possible for the institutional and organizational development of parties,” Tokayev said. He proposed lowering the threshold for party registration from 20,000 to 5,000 and other shifts to ease the creation of political parties.
“New parties will emerge that are capable of skillfully articulating and effectively solving the pressing problems of their electorate,” Tokayev boldly claimed.
But although Tokayev’s wish-list of constitutional changes was granted in the May 2022 referendum, and thresholds for registration were lowered – on paper – it has not led to the emergence of new parties. Or rather, new parties have attempted to emerge but been consistently rejected.
Kazhyken, in his recent appeal, argued that “the registration procedure has turned not into a legal control mechanism, but into an insurmountable administrative barrier. It is especially alarming that the right to create a political party – the foundation of democracy and the basis of political competition – has proven unattainable. Without real party competition, the development of a democratic system is impossible, and any reforms risk remaining merely declarative.”
Kazhyken is a a Kazakh economist and academic, with prior associations with the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan. In 2022, he stepped into the political arena for the first time. YNTYMAQ’s creation was announced in April 2022. Kazhyken contested the November 2022 presidential election, but was nominated by the “Amanat” Commonwealth of Trade Unions since YNTYMAQ had not achieved registration.
By December 2024YNTYMAQ had had its registration rejected twice. At the time Kazhyken wrote, “Both times, the organizing committee was denied registration of the political party. The reasons for the refusal are very weak and unconvincing.” He offered encouragement of Tokayev’s stated reforms. “We ask you to continue reforming the legislation on political parties, in particular, it is extremely important to prescribe strict and clearly interpreted rules regarding: the formation of an initiative group, the procedure for holding a constituent congress, the content of constituent documents, including the list of ‘party members’ (of a party that does not yet exist).” In these points, he argued, the Ministry of Justice finds room for interpretation and decides against registration.
With his latest appeal Kazhyken sought to place his party’s struggle – and arguably that of others who have sought to form political parties in Kazakhstan and met with consistent refusals – into a global context, and illustrate the stakes involved in denying people participation in their own government.
“The scale of protests [around the world] is on an upward trend. The main reasons are social inequality, corruption, and distrust of the authorities. Kazakhstan is no exception. Weakly justified refusals to register parties and associations increase distrust and create a risk of protest mobilization,” he noted.
“Without the real possibility of registering parties and associations, Kazakhstan risks remaining among the countries with limited freedoms, and public trust in reforms will decline.”
Although Kazakh authorities – not the least of them Tokayev – have made statements about the need for citizens to be engaged in the political process, the opportunities to do so remain limited.
Ahead of the snap parliamentary elections in March 2023, two new parties – Respublica and Baytaq – were registrated, the first new parties to gain registration in a decade. But as Paolo Sorbello wrote for The Diplomat just after the election:
Respublica, a group that vows to defend the rights of entrepreneurs, was registered on January 19, the same day as Tokayev’s announcement that the country would hold snap elections. Baytak, a self-proclaimed environmentalist party, was registered the month before the vote, after more than a dozen attempts to be officially recognized.
After the vote, it became clear that the new parties would serve radically different purposes. By gaining 8.5 percent of the votes, Respublica has become the newest feature of Kazakhstani politics and is likely to parrot the government’s plans for business-friendly reforms. Baytak, on the other hand, failed to gain enough votes to enter the parliament and will continue to occupy a confusing role in Kazakhstan’s push for an energy transition.
Meanwhile, Sorbello pointed out: “Real opposition parties, such as the Democratic Party or Alga Kazakhstan, which have repeatedly tried to register, were not allowed into the race.”
YNTYMAQ is not alone. In May 2022Vlast catalogued 16 efforts at starting new parties, including YNTYMAQ’s. Of those, only Respublica and Baytaq achieved registration.
And some have faced much worse than rejection. Zhanbolat Mamai, the leader of the unregistered Democratic Party, was arrested in February 2022 and convinced in April 2023 on charges that he orchestrated “mass riots” during the 2022 protests. Although the charge carried the possibility of a decade in prison, he was given a suspended six-year sentence. In lieu of prison time, he was subject to a broad ban on social and political activity. In September 2024Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, effectively silencing him.
In appealing to Tokayev, Kazhyken urged the president – who is pushing toward another constitutional referendum – to “genuinely simplify the procedures for registering political parties and public associations, eliminating administrative arbitrariness on the part of the registering body.”
“We hope that our voice will not only be heard, but also correctly understood,” Kazhyken concluded, appealing to a president who promised a “listening state” back in 2021 but who hasn’t seemed to hear anything.