US embassy cable - 05ALMATY582

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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