FAULT LINES WITHIN AK ZHOL- LEADERS MANEUVER FOR

UNCLAS ALMATY 000582

SIPDIS


STATE FOR EUR/CACEN- J.MUDGE AND DRL/PHD- P.DAVIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PINR KZ POLITICAL
SUBJECT: FAULT LINES WITHIN AK ZHOL- LEADERS MANEUVER FOR
POSITION


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: During the February 12-13 weekend, Ak
Zhol co-chairman Alikhan Baimenov held a special, closed
party meeting with 62 regional Ak Zhol leaders to discuss
the direction of the party. In addition to initiating a
successful no-confidence vote against fellow co-chairman
Altybek Sarsenbaiuly, Baimenov challenged Ak Zhol's
participation in the Coordinating Council of Democratic
Forces of Kazakhstan (CCDF),which also includes the two
other opposition parties: the Communist Party of Kazakhstan
(CPK) and the embattled Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan
(DCK). This very public sparring over Ak Zhol's direction
may be the first round of opposition positioning for the
2006 Presidential election. END SUMMARY

Background
--------------

2. (SBU) In March 2002, three prominent DCK members left to
join the splinter party Ak Zhol: Bulat Abilov, a former Otan
M.P. who defected to DCK; Alikhan Baimenov, who previously
served in high executive offices including as Minister of
Labor and Social Protection (2000-01) and Chief of the
Presidential Administration (1998-99); and Oraz Zhandosov,
who served as Chairman of the National Bank (1996-98),
Deputy Prime Minister (1998-99 and 2000-01) and Minister of
Finance (1999),among other positions, prior to joining Ak
Zhol. While DCK has attempted a populist approach to its
opposition, the membership of Ak Zhol has come predominantly
from the ethnic Kazakh elites. A fourth prominent Kazakh
politician, Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, joined Ak Zhol in
November 2003; he had previously served as Secretary of the
Security Council (2001),Ambassador to Russia (2002-03) and
as chief of various incarnations of the Ministry of Culture
and Information (1995-2001).


3. (SBU) Prior to last year's Mazhilis elections, the four
leading figures in the party agreed to a five co-chairman
leadership structure, setting the question of ultimate
leadership aside until after the election. A fifth co-
chair, Lyudmila Zhulanova, is the only female and only non-
ethnic Kazakh in this shared-leadership arrangement. She
has kept a generally low profile, and appears not to have
any strong personal leadership ambitions of her own. She is
not known to have a strong personal constituency within Ak
Zhol. In her speech at the Ak Zhol party congress last
fall, she spoke exclusively about social welfare issues; she
appeared to be comfortable, but uncharismatic, as a public
speaker.


4. (SBU) Among the four male co-chairs, Baimenov and
Sarsenbaiuly are generally considered the most politically
savvy. Both men balance strong public personae with an
understanding of policy and political machinations. Abilov,
a wealthy businessman, has emerged as an energetic public
speaker, who leans more towards flamboyant gestures than
nuanced realpolitik. Zhandosov is Ak Zhol's policy wonk,
who has pushed Ak Zhol heavily towards market driven
economics; he is a shy, though impressively able, public
speaker. The five co-chairman structure deferred the
question of Ak Zhol's ultimate leadership until after the
September elections, but few political observers believed
that four such heavy hitters would be content with this
arrangement for long.

THE PLENUM: CCDF AND NO CONFIDENCE VOTE ON SARSENBAIULY
-------------- -

5. (SBU) On February 13, Baimenov called a special, closed
party plenum with 62 regional Ak Zhol leaders. While co-
chair Zhulanova participated in the meeting and aligned
herself with Baimenov, co-chairs Abilov, Zhandosov, and
Sarsenbaiuly refused to participate. The plenum considered
two questions: the integration of Ak Zhol into the CCDF and
the role of Sarsenbaiuly in the party leadership.


6. (SBU) While Baimenov supported Ak Zhol's participation
in CCDF, he criticized the CCDF implementation as co-opting
or undermining the Ak Zhol apparatus. The CCDF, formed
following the September elections, recently decided to open
branch offices throughout Kazakhstan. Baimenov felt that
this move signaled a planned transition of Ak Zhol support
to a new opposition party that would arise out of CCDF.
Baimenov argued that the new offices would force regional Ak
Zhol leaders to either compete or be subsumed. Baimenov
stated that certain Ak Zhol leaders had placed "their own
career interest higher than the party interests," and


requested a vote of "no confidence" in Sarsenbaiuly. The
regional leaders agreed with Baimenov, voting 60-2 against
Sarsenbaiuly's leadership.


7. (SBU) On February 14, Abilov, Zhandosov and Sarsenbaiuly
held a press conference denouncing Baimenov's meeting. The
three reaffirmed their commitment to working together
through the CCDF to unite the opposition before the
presidential elections. They conceded that the regional
level leadership, who had the most invested in the party
apparatus itself, supported Baimenov. Nevertheless, they
indicated that at the most recent party congress,
approximately 90 percent of the membership at large voted to
participate in the CCDF and to nominate a single opposition
candidate for president.


8. (SBU) COMMENT: Although all five Ak Zhol co-chairmen have
stated publicly that the party is not splitting, political
observers have long suspected that the five-member
leadership structure of the party would not accommodate the
long term personal ambitions of the co-chairmen. While an
internal split has emerged over the question of Ak Zhol's
involvement with the Coordination Council of Democratic
Forces of Kazakhstan (CCDFK),the larger question remains:
who will emerge as the leading opposition candidate to
challenge Nazarbayev in the 2005/ 2006 Presidential
election. END COMMENT


9. (U) DUSHANBE MINIMIZE CONSIDERED.

ORDWAY


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