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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
BY FAR THE LARGEST of the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet
Union, independent Kazakstan is the world's ninth-largest nation in
geographic area. The population density of Kazakstan is among the lowest
in the world, partly because the country includes large areas of
inhospitable terrain. Kazakstan is located deep within the Asian
continent, with coastline only on the landlocked Caspian Sea. The
proximity of unstable countries such as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and
Azerbaijan to the west and south further isolates Kazakstan (see fig. 4).
Within the centrally controlled structure of the Soviet system,
Kazakstan played a vital industrial and agricultural role; the vast coal
deposits discovered in Kazakstani territory in the twentieth century
promised to replace the depleted fuel reserves in the European territories
of the union. The vast distances between the European industrial centers
and coal fields in Kazakstan presented a formidable problem that was only
partially solved by Soviet efforts to industrialize Central Asia. That
endeavor left the newly independent Republic of Kazakstan a mixed legacy:
a population that includes nearly as many Russians as Kazaks; the presence
of a dominating class of Russian technocrats, who are necessary to
economic progress but ethnically unassimilated; and a well-developed
energy industry, based mainly on coal and oil, whose efficiency is
inhibited by major infrastructural deficiencies.
Kazakstan has followed the same general political pattern as the other
four Central Asian states. After declaring independence from the Soviet
political structure completely dominated by Moscow and the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (CPSU) until 1991, Kazakstan retained the basic
governmental structure and, in fact, most of the same leadership that had
occupied the top levels of power in 1990. Nursultan Nazarbayev, first
secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakstan (CPK) beginning in 1989, was
elected president of the republic in 1991 and remained in undisputed power
five years later. Nazarbayev took several effective steps to ensure his
position. The constitution of 1993 made the prime minister and the Council
of Ministers responsible solely to the president, and in 1995 a new
constitution reinforced that relationship. Furthermore, opposition parties
were severely limited by legal restrictions on their activities. Within
that rigid framework, Nazarbayev gained substantial popularity by limiting
the economic shock of separation from the security of the Soviet Union and
by maintaining ethnic harmony, despite some discontent among Kazak
nationalists and the huge Russian minority.
In the mid-1990s, Russia remained the most important sponsor of
Kazakstan in economic and national security matters, but in such matters
Nazarbayev also backed the strengthening of the multinational structures
of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS--see Glossary), the loose
confederation that succeeded the Soviet Union. As sensitive ethnic,
national security, and economic issues cooled relations with Russia in the
1990s, Nazarbayev cultivated relations with China, the other Central Asian
nations, and the West. Nevertheless, Kazakstan remains principally
dependent on Russia.
Kazakstan entered the 1990s with vast natural resources, an
underdeveloped industrial infrastructure, a stable but rigid political
structure, a small and ethnically divided population, and a commercially
disadvantageous geographic position. In the mid-1990s, the balance of
those qualities remained quite uncertain.
Data as of March 1996
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