The doors of Nurbulat Masanov and Amirzhan Kosanov, of the Republican People s Party, were sealed with cement, and their telephone lines were ripped out. It is widely believed that security police filmed Seidakhmet Kuttykadam, an opposition politician, while he was in a public bathhouse with a woman who was not his wife, in order to compromise him. The film was then shown on a website. Mr Masanov, an historian, says Kazakhstan has no tradition of democracy or political pluralism, and the post-Soviet authorities do not know how to deal with the opposition constructively through dialogue. Hence the hooliganism , he says.
Ordinary people remain politically immature.
They complain about policies that have brought unemployment and poverty, but seem unable to grasp that, if they chose to organise, they could influence government through their numbers. That suits Mr Nazarbaev just fine, but clearly such political innocence cannot go on for ever. Perhaps when resentment against government corruption can no longer be contained. Reports of big oil finds that were expected to bring some prosperity to the poverty-stricken country have been tarnished by stories of alleged kickbacks to government people by American oil companies. The United States Department of Justice is said to be investigating.