PM Disappearing Confuses Investors - The Almaty Herald weekly
No84 Oktober 1 - Oktober 8, 1997
herald.asdc.kz
The past week's government press release about Prime Minister Akezhan
Kazhegeldin's illness and immediate leave for abroad for urgent medical treatment
seriously confused many foreign investors, who had committed to rich in natural
resources Kazakhstan.
Being dissatisfied with rather a vague diagnosis, claiming traumatic phlebitis of the
vessels of the shin and PM's acute health conditions, forcing him to undergo the
therapy course somewhere in Europe, the Kazakhstan based investment community is
inclined to think that reformist Akezhan Kazhegeldin is about to lose his position in the
government.
The local media is adding fuel to the flame, spreading rumors about Mr. Kazhegeldin's
disguised dismissal. The independent newspapers blame the government for the
information vacuum surrounding Kazhegeldin's health and possible returning to his
duties.
The local media doubts the transparency of the government's affairs, citing the example
of the relative openness on Russian President
Boris Yeltsin's heart operation last year and accusing the government of violations of
taxpayers legal rights to reliable information on
the whereabouts and the health of their prime minister.
According to some assumptions, the 45-year-old Prime Minister might have gone to
Italy to his daughter lives. However, the official sources say Mr. Kazhegeldin is in
Switzerland. Kazhegeldin's tight-lipped stand-in, First Deputy Prime Minister
Akhmetzhan Yesimov, temporarily executing Prime Minister's duties, told reporters
late last week that at the urging of the president and doctors' recommendations, the
prime minister had flew to a European country for treatment.
One of the Almaty based American lawyers, who declined to name himself, said Mr.
Kazhegeldin had fallen a victim of his enormously increased popularity among foreign
businessmen and the country's residents, shading President's Nazarbaev public image.
That might be one of the reasons for Kazhegeldin's temporary dismissal.
President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has been ruling in Kazakhstan since its
independence in 1991 cannot stand any political opponents. Prime Minister
Kazhegeldin was one of the few candidates who could replace him after the
presidential elections in 1991. Another group of President's political opponents is likely
to lose their jobs after the coming official move to Akmola, where the governmental
premises construction are still far from completion.
Akezhan Kazhegeldin, a successful businessman before his appointment in 1994, is
used to being in the focus of constant political speculation.
President Nazarbaev, worried at the growing social tension over unpaid wages and
pensions, made a scapegoat of Kazhegeldin in past April. Nazarbaev imposed him
with a potentially hopeless order, demanding that the prime minister pay off all pension
arrears by the end of the year - or lose his job. After past week's successful $350
million Eurobond issue and cash rolling into government budget from
privatization bonuses, the restricted prime minister looks like he has pulled it off. Yet he
is seen as the only person capable of
mounting a real challenge to Nazarbaev in presidential elections in 2000.
The country's powerful Soviet-era oil barons had the knives out for Kazhegeldin over
this year's breathless privatization of the troubled
oil sector. Foreign investors are waiting with interest to see whether the embattled
prime minister will take a keynote address at the
start of an oil exhibition and conference in Almaty this Thursday. |
