Akezhan Kazhegeldin's letter to leaders of Kazakh opposition parties

Dear Colleagues,

In a normal country, elections are the factor of stability and the proof of a democratic rule. In Kazakhstan, third elections in a row appear to be a nationwide shock.

It makes no sense to wonder over and over again why the recent parliamentary elections have been even less fair and free than any previous ones. The answer is quite clear: because the Nazarbayev group is aware they would loose any free and fair election. That's why they denied independent observers access to the election commissions. That's why they denied opposition airtime on nationwide television. That's why they introduced their electronic falsification system. That's why many democratic politicians were barred from running for parliament.

Did we know beforehand the events would take this turn? Yes, we did. We could not have possibly expected anything different, as we have been living with this political regime for years already; we have studied it from the inside. Nursultan Nazarbayev could not allow the opposition to win even partially and let its minority members into parliament. If in these circumstances one expected to succeed, one should openly acknowledge that this was wrong from the very start.

Opposition members could have chosen between the two strategies during the recent elections: they could have criticized with discretion in the hope that Nazarbayev would appreciate their self-restrain and instruct the CEC to “let the right-minded opposition member in”. Or they could have chosen to fight and speak out against corruption, the Kazakhgate, the “family's” grip on Kazakhstan, and the usurpation of power by a single group.

It was up to parties and each candidate in particular to decide which strategy to choose. I do not consider it possible to denounce or publicly discuss my colleagues' blunders, as for yet another time I was denied a chance to run for parliament and to campaign myself.

In response to your requests to share my view of the current situation and the prospects for opposition, I would offer ten theses including a practical proposal. Both the theses and the proposal are subject to discussion, development, and debate. In our spheres, a friendly discussion is a must.

The only thing I would like to remind all potential participants in the discussion is that our country is lacking time. One year to go to the presidential elections will pass in a blink. After that, the country could follow a “Turkmen model of democracy”.1. Nazarbayev-style election is a threat to national security

The outcome of recent election is terrible not because this or that deserving politician has failed to win a seat in parliament. This can be remedied during the next election. Party activists efforts are also a replenishing resource.

Personal composition of the new parliament is not so dangerous either. Its members know the price of their “victory” and deep in their heart realize that one day they will have to yield their seats to real elects of the nation. Whom could represent a deputy who has a 52% of vote with a 5-10% turnout? Only the person who has put him on the list of those elected.

Nursultan Nazarbayev sought to have an outwardly democratic puppet parliament, but he has received а useless one-party “supreme soviet” of the Brezhnev era. In this parliament, Otan party plays the part of the CPSU, the Asar party - the Young Communist League, and the Eurasian deputies of the AIST block represent trade unions.

One-party parliaments existed under Milosevic, Ceausescu, and Saddam Hussein. Where are those dictators and their “elects” today? Weak deputies without a mandate from their constituencies are unable to actively support the regime. They will flop over to the winners the moment they realize who are the strongest.

We should not be afraid of the new parliament. The danger lies in Kazakh citizens’ absolute disappointment over the elections and their refusal to participate in the vote. International observers have clearly shown that the turnout was very low. The CEC could show any turnout in their final results, it does not really matter. The run-off figures are striking: the turnout is just 5%-10%! This means that society is reluctant to participate in the comedy scripted by Nazarbayev and Balieva.

The low turnout is the people's response to Nazarbayev's call to support his personal “power party”. This is a vote of non-confidence to the puppet parliament. It's easy to predict the threat that lies in citizens’ refusal to go to the polls. In a political crisis that would follow very soon, the authorities and the opposition will lack a tool to legitimize their actions. The bankrupt regime can only be removed peacefully by means of free elections. But people might refuse to go to the polls, because they have been befooled several times in a row.

Under such circumstances, extremist forces might attempt to present themselves as those who express people's interests. “The authorities do not hear you”, convince extremist agitators the people. “We will make them listen if not to the voice of their voters, then to the thunder of blasts.” The logic of terror is simple: when one cannot replace a politician by means of election, one can blow him up.

A possibility of spontaneous opposition between the nation and the authorities is rising every day. We have all watched with sympathy the “rose revolution” in Georgia. But is there any guarantee that the revolution outbreak in Kazakhstan will be bloodless? The rage and grievance accumulated in people's hearts will boil over in an open confrontation. Kazakh citizen would fire at Kazakh citizen, brother would fight with brother… The symbol of such a revolution would be the bur instead of the rose.

2. Has the compromise potential been exhausted?

There have been lots of protests posted after the election. The indignation of colleagues is quite understandable: they have been stripped of their victory in a foul way. What I cannot understand is the bewilderment of those who sincerely believed that they would be allowed to win in the “fight without rules.” Let's try to figure out what this reliance was based upon.

Certain party leaders and administration heads are known to have reached “gentleman's agreements” with each other. This happened in the previous elections too. Backstage diplomacy sometimes proves very efficient. But it is naпve to hope for fair practices among those in the president administration and his entourage. Despite their high-ranking posts, they remain just skivvies who hurry to follow their master's instructions.

In recent years, opposition cultivated a number of myths that have been now exposed and discarded. The first was about a good president surrounded by evil counselors. Only a mentally retarded person or a liar can repeat all this now.

However, the other myth is still alive. According to it, there are secret patriots in the Nazarbayev entourage who have to grit their teeth and serve the evil authority for the sake of their homeland. Everyone knows where those "underground patriots" have been in recent years: in the ranks of those corrupt officials who took part in falsifications and crackdown on freedom, those who brought false criminal charges against opposition members?

There used to be many people in our circles ready to believe in utopia. In particular, in a possibility to gradually “improve” the Nazarbayev political system. The referendum on election of akims (heads of local administrations) has failed not for the lack of the required number of signatures. Even is 14 mln Kazakh citizens had voted for it, including infants, Nazarbayev would have prevented it from being held. His power relies on a pyramid of his appointees, who, in their turn, do what they deem necessary in his behalf.

Any hope to improve the Nazarbayev power system from the inside has also proved a utopia. The logic is understandable: we will become good ministers and akims, we will set an example how to serve our homeland and create conditions for speech freedom and fair competition. Our example will help everyone, including Nazarbayev, to understand that they should live honestly and rule democratically… This reminds me of an old joke that under the communist regime church scholars studied a possibility of doomsday coming in one individual country.

It has long been known that freedom is continuous and universal. It either exists or does not exist at all. There cannot be the freedom of economic competition without media freedom. There cannot be media freedom without a freely elected parliament. There cannot be independent court without free election. And so on and so forth… A single opposition minister in the cabinet led by a helpless prime minister can do nothing of use. But the fact he is a minister will allow the Nazarbayev diplomats to speculate in western press about “pluralism” of the authoritarian regime.

Fortunately, most prominent representatives of democratic opposition who have gone into power, so to say, “in a private manner” have managed to soon come back and retain their reputation.

Does this mean that possibilities of a compromise with Nazarbayev and his group have been exhausted, that the system he designed must be “swept away altogether, and afterwards ”?.. I hope, not. Opposition still has a chance to have a seat in power. To achieve this, opposition members should not work all by themselves, they should work in a team. They should rely on the majority in society and have a political program that the power would accept as a condition for cooperation in the face of total confrontation.

Opposition government should be composed from among the democratically-minded politicians and technocrat managers under condition of accountability to popularly elected parliament, not just to the president, and - specifically - not to his administration, family, foreign bankers and advisers, his cronies or his friends. I have worked for such unaffiliated government together with many of you, so I know what I am speaking about.

3. The white and the black only

Six years that have passes since the 1998 fall overturn that has turned Kazakhstan into an authoritarian state could not remain barren in the popular consciousness. Everyone realizes that changes are unavoidable. Democratic politicians and patriotically minded officials should ensure this process be smooth and bloodless.

To do so, we should make the political situation in the country as clear as possible; we should make it unambiguous and understandable for common people in most far-away village. Each Kazakh citizen should realize that he or she is facing a simple question: does he back the “black” or does he back the “white”? Is he or she for Nazarbayev, his family and his entourage, or for new representatives of the people? Is he or she for the good or for the evil? For the “night patrol” or for the “day patrol”?

“The black” are the Nazarbayev power. Nobody sees any positive or perspective in it. It is all dirty mass, which Nazarbayev has been spreading over the high-ranking posts, peeling off and spreading once again. The look of his “political elites” makes him seek, but he has nobody else to fill this position.

“The whites” are the opposition. But it still lacks the unity that would allow common citizen consider all democratic forces as a single whole. The authorities have long regarding us as a single enemy, while we still do not regard each other as allies!

To date some opposition figures have feared to call themselves “the white” and to oppose “the black”. Because this is allegedly too confrontational and irreconcilable. They have warily preferred to consider themselves “gray”, “beige”, or “light”.

If one views the political struggle from the point of view of playing chess, one can say that our fellow countrymen see black chessmen on the chessboard, among them towering the king - Nazarbayev, the queen - Dariga, knights, rooks and bishops with the faces of the president’s relatives, akims and ministers. Constrainedly, officials play the part of rank-and-file pieces.

On the chessboard, the blacks are opposed by several sets of various shades of white, each having two, three or even five kings. These different shade-white hosts fight not only the black but also each other in the fear that some of them would manage to gain ground.

4. Time to unite

Loosing an election brings not only bitterness and disappointment. This is also a possibility to reconsider old postulates and to work out a new strategy. Amid the indignation over the election results, we should immediately decide as to what we should do: tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a month, in three months, in six months, etc. Let’s remember, how fast the years after the 1999 election have flown! We have no time to waste on lengthy round tables debates. By no means we should imitate uniting our efforts, establish various associations, coalitions, blocks or fronts.

All democratic forces should immediately unite into a single party - a strong, up-to-date party able to win a victory in the fight with dictatorship.

In my mind, the most efficient way is to merge all opposition parties by joining one of the parties that has proved most successful during the recent elections. The proposed version provides for a simple and prompt unification, as the authorities will try to put a spoke in our wheel. This will enable us to avoid the justice ministry’s traps and the bureaucratic routine.

The unitor-party to be joined by others must become Ak Zhol that has won recognition from the public during the elections. Ak Zhol possesses a branchy structure, organizational resources and experienced staff. This appears just and reasonable.

The unification process may be organized in the following way: all parties (Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK), the Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan (RPPK), the Patriots Party …) shall hold their congresses at one time and preferably at one place. During these congresses, they would take a decision to dissolve their party or to suspend its activities and, simultaneously, to collectively join the Ak Zhol party. The same day, Ak Zhol at its congress shall okay the decision to unite.

There is no use wasting time and efforts on fighting for posts in the newly united party. We should recognize our colleagues from the Ak Zhol party as our leaders. Personal composition of the leading bodies should remain intact. The question regarding the leading bodies might be considered later. For the moment, leaders of other parties will have to work as rank-and-file members.

If on the congress day I were in Kazakhstan, I would be the first person to apply for membership in the united Ak Zhol. However, I can do it from the exile too.

In the past, we attempted to unite the RPPK, Azamat and People’s Congress party into a United Democratic Party. We failed because some activists cherished a banal profit motive to turn a political move into a commercial deal. However, that failure does not mean it’s impossible to unite today.

The vistas that open up are breathtaking. Overnight, the country would get a political party that relies on a clear majority and exceeds the “power party” in human resources. Its objectives should be simple and coherent: to remove the dictatorship, to uproot government corruption, freedom of speech, and justice and equal rights for all.

The attractiveness of a united opposition party will be so huge that all prominent public figures in Kazakhstan would eventually like to join it. I am positive that members of the united parties would include non-partisan Zamanbek Nurkadilov. We should acknowledge that he made a most courageous move when he challenged Nazarbayev. Similarly, if invited, Olzhas Suleimenov, Boltash Tursumbayev, Murat Auezov and others are almost sure to join the Ak Zhol party too.

5. Otan is not a threat

The uniting of opposition will greatly impress the top authorities. Officials at all levels will see the “power party” of the near future. Pragmatic and patriotic-minded employees of government agencies and state-run companies will appreciate the perspectives opening to them in civil and professional respects.

Otan is the most important source of members for us. There are no public figures, no politicians there, but a lot of experienced administrators, who will take care of the state structure in case of power transfer. We will not have another source to obtain state officials. We are to work with Otan members, stay in contact with them, explain the perspectives, which are about to occur if opposition wins. We do not need to care a lot about Asar or AIST activists. They will join the strongest.

Otan is actually not a party. Its top members have no taste for public politics. They do not represent anyone’s interests and do not have an ideology. Otan leaders were forced, as slaves on a plantation, to participate in the election campaign, which was organized for Otan by visiting political technologists for big money. The fate of the disappeared “leader” Tereshchenko has taught everyone a lesson.

(Unlike the Otan leaders, Asar leaders considered the recent elections as a great chance to rise from political nonentities to nationally recognized figures. But miracles do not happen. Nice looking swans do not necessarily grow up from ugly ducklings. Ugly ducks, which make any political institution look like a bird farm, grow up from those ducklings much more often).

Otan is a forced perfunctory union of state officials, which will be the same under any power. When Nazarbayev resigns the state of Kazakhstan will need experienced professionals in urban and rural economy, ministerial officials, state-run companies employees.

These people are the regime's victims to the same extent, as the people in general. They have been forced to work in the environment of total corruption, incompetence, nepotism and iniquity. Some of them are implicated in that. But we are to distinguish between those, who enforce corruption in the state apparatus and those, who didn’t dare to openly oppose it. The former are criminals; the latter are victims of the circumstance. They will give up bad traditions with a sigh of relief, when new people come to power.

Kazakhstan-style corruption stems from iniquity and non-transparency in the president’s entourage. It’s enough for state leaders (president, ministers, administration head, and akims) to stop taking bribes to overcome corruption. Other authorities would fear taking bribes and businessmen and citizens would drop giving them with pleasure.

Today many Otan members sympathize opposition simply by ignoring elections together with other citizens. Tomorrow they will support Ak Zhol openly. Until this happens we should avoid jeopardizing our supporters among the authorities. We should use their information sources to prevent provocations against opposition leaders.

6. Kazakhstan is a hostage of Nazarbayev’s mistakes

Nursultan Nazarbayev's “curriculum vitae” is well known. He has dissolved the parliament, rewritten the Constitution, violated laws he developed himself, falsified election results, shut down newspapers and burnt them down, initiated criminal persecution against his political opponents and journalists. At the same time, Nazarbayev has signed international charters obliging him to behave in a completely different way in accordance with democratic standards accepted worldwide. The president hoped to deceive the international community. Western political leaders have to control their squeamish feelings when they communicate with the president of Kazakhstan because they know that his declarations are a far cry from his deeds.

Nazarbayev’s activities have tarnished the image of Kazakhstan. In recent years, our political system has transformed from an exemplary post-Soviet democracy into an ugly autocracy, an object for criticism and mockery. None of post-Soviet republics has deserved such an enormous amount of critical publications in the media, denouncing declarations by the European Parliament, EU, the Council of Europe, OSCE, the U. S. Congress and MPs in European countries.

The regime’s foreign-policy isolation has been increasing dramatically as the scandal around the president’s secret accounts in Swiss banks unfolds. Kazakhgate is our national drama, a historical disgrace of that part of the elite, which has decided to swiftly make a fortune at people’s expense in an extremely short period of time. Everyone, who is implicated in Kazakhgate, who covered Giffen and received money from his hands, has deceased as a politician and realizes it quite well. The international political establishment views them as lepers.

There could be no better subject for opposition in any country. It could have been very easy to get support from the population on this wave. Kazakh voters expected legal parties to offer a clear-cut position on this sensitive issue. But they never were answered completely. The items on their election programs dealing with combating corruption appeared to be diluted. It’s impossible to offer treatment without pointing directly to the most terrible running sore on Kazakhstan’s body.

President Nazarbayev will not be able to dismiss this serious charge as well. Kazakhgate has been heading for a final lap. The trial, where the circumstances of crimes will be disclosed, will begin in New York in three months.

We, the Kazakh citizens, expect to receive from Nursultan Nazarbayev reasonable explanations as to every counts: each secret account in Swiss bank, each money transfer from oil companies, each gift that he, his spouse and other family members accepted.

Kazakhgate has a serious economic aspect as well. Nursultan Nazarbayev decided one-sidedly which oil company to grant a contract and which contract in particular. Governments to be would not be in a position to guarantee any current or future investments in the Kazakh oil sector until the circumstances of James Giffen’s activities would not be fully revealed. The contracts signed through his intermediation should be published and investigated by future parliamentarians in detail.

Nursultan Nazarbayev will have to take a clear position on Kazakhgate also because James Giffen’s defense team insists that the advisor to the president was an agent of the U. S. secret services who was involved in intelligence operations and actively influenced the policy of our independent state.

If that gets documental confirmation we would have a Kazakhgate square, an unseen before national disgrace. The history knows high-ranking corruption cases in certain countries. But none has heard before that president of the country was on a payroll of foreign intelligence service. If this is true, the whole country would found itself a hostage of its president’s mistakes or crimes.

7. We are to resolve the Kazakhgate crisis

Opposition has to work out a common approach to Kazakhgate. We can’t keep silence and just hint to this or that any more. The tactic of innocent parliamentary inquiries has proved useless. Those, who inquired, behaved as though they did not know the truth. While those, who answered, behaved as though they told the truth.

I spoke about the threat that Kazakhgate poses to the state in my personal talk with Nursultan Nazarbayev. Opposition should tell him that once more through their leaders. Ak Zhol leaders (O. Zhandosov, A. Sarsenbayev, A. Baymenov, Z. Ertlesova, T. Zhukeev), who continued working in their capacity at state agencies after my resignation have to convince Nursultan Nazarbayev that he should think about the country. Is he an enemy of his own country after all?

The united Ak Zhol should immediately form a commission, which will examine all documents in the U.S. and Switzerland on the Kazakhgate case and meet with the involved parties. As far as I know, leaders of several opposition parties were invited to come to the respective countries to see for themselves how the investigation proceeds on site. But none ventured to take this trip.

If in January 2005 no opposition leaders turn up in the courtroom of Southern District of New York as observers that would send a bad signal not only to voters, but also to international community. That would mean that Kazakh opposition is afraid and does not intend to fight seriously, so there is no need to give it the backing.

Instead, opposition’s active involvement could help return home the funds frozen on bank accounts. We are talking about more than $100 million. We should act as U. S. and Swiss authorities partners in negotiations regarding the fate of those funds. Parliamentarians in the U.S. and Switzerland have demanded that the money should not be returned to Nazarbayev until he remains in office. We should suggest an alternative solution.

8. A single presidential candidate

Uniting into a single party supposes nomination of a single candidate for the presidential election. In contrast to the usual election campaign tactics, this candidate should be agreed upon as soon as possible, as early as in winter. We need to introduce our candidate to the international community to secure guarantees of his safety from western governments, European Union, Council of Europe, and OSCE. International recognition and aggressive information campaigning for a single opposition candidate would protect him or her from becoming “a target” of the authorities and secret services provocations.

I believe we will have no difficulties with choosing a deserving candidate to run for president. There are persons in Kazakhstan who have every right to take up this post and are able to carry out the necessary democratic reforms. Most important is that all party leaders should harmonize their party and personal ambitions for the sake of overcoming the authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, the Kazakhgate might cause us to face a difficult choice whether to participate in the 2006 election campaign at all. Nazarbayev said long ago he would run for the forth term in office. By nominating its candidate, opposition appears to legitimate Nazarbayev’s participation in the election. By doing so. we agree that he has the right to do so.

What should we do? The answer depends on the outcome of the New York trial, on whether Nazarbayev will manage to prove he is not guilty of the corruption crimes and high treason. If he fails to do so, we will have to demand to bar him from elections. Any participation in an election campaign together with him would be ruled out. Our candidate should be superior to running for president on a par with a bribe-taker and a foreign secret service agent.

How a president, who is a criminal, would appoint judges, sign into law bills, grant or deny pardon? How could he oversee the law-enforcement agencies, if the court says he is a bribe-taker? What would citizens think of akims and ministers he would administer to an oath? Every Kazakh citizen would ask these questions and this would be a true crisis that would shake the very foundation of our state!

President Nazarbayev should cooperate with the U.S. justice. Should he proves that he has fallen victim of a conspiracy, that subjectively he did not sought bribes and allowed James Giffen to manipulate government funds out of levity or irresponsibility, this would imply one level of criticism on our part, and, respectively, one level of political liability. If Nazarbayev with open eyes has agreed to establish an international criminal group and cooperate with a foreign agent, this would mean bringing high treason charges against him, removal from office and putting on trial.

We all would sincerely wish that events would follow a different scenario, as the latter scenario would bring great shame on our country. Too great is a possibility that it would harder the people.

9. Positive program

The difficulty associated with uniting of parties appears to lie in the accommodation of a single party platform rather than in the accommodation of personal ambitions of many politicians. It is not because our views are conflicting, but because they are similar in principle. The existing programs are all multiloquent, they lack clear-cut objectives and are ambiguous in their wording. Our program should become very easy and coherent. It will not be more than a page long: removing “the black” from power and winning the power by “the white”.

To fairly distribute the gains, to care for the socially unprotected, to put an end to the outrage and exactions, to uproot corruption – all this will become possible on the condition the opposition would come to power. “The black” protect the dark past, while “the white” work for the bright future.

At the same time, we should openly speak not only about the shortcomings and faults of the Nazarbayev regime, but also of Kazakhstan’s achievements in the years of independence. They do exist, and one should not deny or hush up them.

To win in January 2006, we should act in conjunction, on behalf of a single party and in accordance with a single plan. Two simultaneous protest rallies make no sense, are the sign of weakness and the recognition of organizational bankruptcy. We should collect the data for legal motions and claims to international groups in a team, thus multiplying the force of our accusations. All parties’ media outlets should be accessible to any politician from our camp. At any international forum, Kazakh opposition members should talk about all their colleagues, not just their “own” convicted persons. Nazarbayev would no longer be able to merely “take you by the hand and put behind the bars.” From now on, we should together stand firmly behind every our associate.

Afterwards, when first free and fair elections are over and the environment for political rivalry is created, the united party would split up into supporters of various paths of development. Later, in a democratic and free Kazakhstan, we will argue with each other, compete for votes in the constituencies, replace each other in parliament, in government and in president’s office. We are not going to establish yet another eternal “power party” instead of the current one.

This is still a dream. But it’s not a too long way to go. It could come true as early as next year. People live that way in Lithuania, Slovakia, Albania, and Mongolia. The Kazakhstan nation cannot possibly have been cursed to live under the authoritarian rule forever. If next year our country does not see any democratic change, it will be us to blame for this, not Nazarbayev. We all will bear our personal burden of guilt.

10. Second front from the abroad

The cause of the Kazakh opposition is very promising. I can judge by the determination of the international community. The international community will not allow dictatorship take root in Kazakhstan. Nor will it support settling the Nazarbayev crisis through dynasty succession.

The “Kazakhgate” has led the Nazarbayev regime to isolation. Leading politicians prefer to avoid meeting with the Kazakh president. He misses UN session after UN session, because he fears to be served with subpoena instructing him to appear for questioning or before court. A new U.S. law has shut the door to the United States not only on corrupt dictators, but also on their cabinet minister and family members.

After the New York trial, Kazakhstan will be isolated from main investors to our economy. The Belarus Democracy Act, recently passed by the U.S. Congress, has demonstrated how sanctions against dictatorship regimes work.

From a political point of view, the United States, Russia and EU member states have appeared as guarantors of our territorial integrity. A conflict with these countries will put Kazakhstan in a difficult international situation. The task of opposition is to show the world that our country does have the forces able to get Kazakhstan back into the community of civilized states.

Much has already been done to achieve this. You can see for yourselves the great attention and backing that our democratic forces have received from international institutions and western foreign ministries. We are deeply grateful to OSCE, Council of Europe, European Union and U.S. Their attention to Kazakhstan, their principled stance and their readiness to fight for human rights have prevented the 2004 parliamentary election from turning into a triumph of dictatorship. For Nazarbayev, the elections have appeared to be yet another defeat on the international arena. Everything - dreams to chair OSCE, hopes to improve relations with the West, a quest for support amid the crisis in the relations with the United States – have turned into ashes.

Living in the West, I am ready to continue doing the job I have done before: to represent opposition, to promote the image of a new united party, to introduce its leaders to political circles, to jointly seek both moral and financial support from western governments and international institutions.

In the past years, the Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan and the Forum of Democratic Forces have accumulated a huge international resource. They have established contacts with most renowned media outlets and have found job partners in major capitals. With open heart, we will offer these resources to our colleagues. United into the Ak Zhol party, opposition would receive the backing of the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE if it demonstrates that it represents all forces in Kazakh society.

The DCK and Ak Zhol share common past. Leaders of these sister parties will find it easy to come to an agreement. I urge them to forget their differences in opinions and past wounds. The fate of the nation and the future of our country are on the agenda today.

Dear Colleagues,

We know each other in person; we have worked together in government, business, or opposition. We have been on different terms with each other: we got along very well, our relations were even or they were strained. But it does not matter anymore when compared to our country’s destiny. It depends on us, all of us. This responsibility scares a little, but it also inspires.

I call on you to realize the uniqueness of the moment and to act as the civil sense prompts us to do. Let's immediately start consultations on the uniting of efforts, on working out a single program of activities to save the country.

The history does not forgive defeats. However, one thing is to sustain a defeat in a fierce battle with heavy odds against us, and the other thing is to suffer a defeat due to one’s foolishness, lack of organization and courage.

The current authorities lack a vision of the future because they have no future. But they will fiercely fight to maintain their past. For this, they have the force and huge resources stolen from the nation. We could set against this the clarity of our goals, the consistency of actions and the transparency of political stance.

You can count on me in our common struggle for freedom, for our rights, for justice and for Kazakhstan's future. My forced emigration and the distance are not any obstacle.

Yours,

Akezhan Kazhegeldin

Almaty, October 10, 2004