Svobodna Dnevnik

[Hadash]

El Correo Internacional

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Kyrzbekistan: Center-left political party elects new leader
By: Milena Brovina
Published: Dosa 21, 1584


Khamazan Rashatur, new general secretary of the Kyrzbek Labour Party.

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Khamazan Rashatur, 60, has been elected new General Secretary of the Kyrzbek Labour Party, after surprisingly defeating favourite Arslan Ruslanur and Commissar for Social Welfare and Healthcare Vereka Elbrus. The Kyrzbek Labour Party, a center-left secular party from Kyrzbekistan, holds currently four ministries in a coalition government with the ruling Socialist People's Party since 1579. The party, which obtained a 14% of the nationwide in the 1582 state elections, however, has been decling in the polls during the last year, with the party losing half of their voters if there were federal elections today.

Arslan Ruslanur had already been leader of the Kyrzbek Labour Party from 1572 and 1579, that year being replaced by Ilgiz Zaribzyanur. But he remained the most nationwide visible politicial of the Kyrzbek Labour Party, being Vice-Chairman of the People's Council (Kyrzbekistan's federal government) since 1579, and being appointed as Commissar of Federal Affairs and Telecommunications and Public Works during that time.

The political alliance between the two largest secular political parties of the country gave the Kyrzbek Labour Party access to political office at the federal level for first time since the Democratic Republic of Kyrzbekistan was established. However, this alliance was not entirely satisfying, as many critics inside the party felt that the Kyrzbek Labour Party was losing its independence and ideological identity without being able to influence a clear change of policies at the federal level. Some feared that the political alliance would end with the Kyrzbek Labour Party being absorved by the Socialist People's Party or turning into an irrelevant political force nationwide. The idea that cooperation between both parties were part of a long-term political project of ideological convergence rather than pragmatist agreement was barely denies by the left branch of the party, represented in the primaries by Vereka Elbrus.

But it was rather the decision of the Socialist People's Party leadership in the state of Uzekyar to run a candidate in the 1582 state elections -instead of an unitary Socialist People's Party-Kyrzbek Labour Party ticket-, strengthened the bitterness and calls from the moderate faction inside the Kyrzbek Labour Party to review the alliance between both parties. Socialist People's Party candidate Zophar Toktamishur would eventually defeat Kyrzbek Labour Party leader Ilgiz Zaribzyanur, who had been governor of that state since 1574. This weakened Zaribzyanur's position in the party, and was forced to call for a new leadership contest. Zaribzyanur, however, who had been General Secretary of the Kyrzbek Labour Party since 1579, openly supported Arslan Ruslanur as candidate to the leadership of the party.

Although not originally a member of that group, Khamazan Rashatur received direct and open support from the moderate faction inside the Kyrzbek Labour Party calling the party to shift toward a more pragmatic orientantion, which they called "Fourth Way" (as a centrist alternative to right-wing capitalism, revolutionary socialism, and political Akhadism). Rashatur, previously a mayor from Basan in the early 1570s, was appointed as Deputy Commissar of Labour in 1579, but he left this position to run as candidate to the federal assembly of Uzekyak. In 1583, he became State Secretary of the Kyrzbek Labour Party, a political position, as it is the only state where the Kyrzbek Labour Party retain an influential position at state level.

Unlike other members of the moderate faction of the Kyrzbek Labour Party, however, Khamazan Rashatur has not openly called to leave the coalition government with the Socialist People's Party in the federal government, but he had advocated a more independent approach and more pragmatist policies (Rashatur had timidly denounced in the past that President Aygöl Zamambekuz was using the Kyrzbek Labour Party as a shield for some unpopular policies). If such coalition government ends before expected, it could leave Damir Kazbekur's in an uncomfortable minority until the 1585 federal elections.