Political modernization in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan successfully follows the path of political transformations. This was said in Almaty by members of "Nur Otan" party and experts of Kazakh Institute of Strategic researches under the President of the country.  There was a round table discussion "The main directions of political modernization in Kazakhstan." Several years ago, the country had been developing by the principle of "economy first, politics after". Now the situation has changed. According to participants of the round table, creation of a qualitative management system – is a main goal of modernization. In this regard, special attention is paid to a question of parties and elections. Opinions of some experts on whether it is possible to return to the mixed majority and proportional system and to reduce a barrier to parties from 7 percent to five, caused ambiguous reaction of meeting participants. One consider this decrease necessary, others say that the 7 percent barrier creates big competition between parties. And since Kazakhstan plans to become one of the 50 most developed countries, it must be competitive in everything - so the experts say.

Serik Akhmetov, secretary of Central office of NDP "Nur Otan":

- Our country as one of the leaders of the former Soviet Union, has set its sights on the modernization of all aspects of social and public life. Modernization process without development of party and political space isn't possible in any way if not to pay enough attention to it.