Internews Kazakhstan recently provided vital news coverage of the country’s parliamentary elections.  The project, intended to strengthen the capacity of national and regional media, has plans for a number of important activities going forward.

In Kazakhstan, the majority of media outlets – particularly TV channels – are partisan, with most serving as media platforms for the ruling Nur Otan party, headed by the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Representatives of other parties are rarely invited to TV programmes. Parties such as OSDP, the only significant opposition party participating in the 2012 elections in Majilis, have difficulties getting exposure on television except for the short pre-electoral period.

To address this, Internews Kazakhstan organized televised political debates, featuring all political candidates campaigning for seats in the parliamentary elections. Such debates are a rare occurrence in Kazakhstan, but important for helping voters make informed decisions. Three additional regional TV stations, partners of Internews Kazakhstan, also aired televised debates between political parties in advance of the elections. Given the polarized nature of most election coverage in the country, these debates were designed to allow candidates to gather and discuss local social and economic problems.

According to Marzhan Elshibaeva, Project Director, “this format gives more freedom to journalists in providing a platform for different views, lively political debate and discussion.”

In addition to the debates, Internews Kazakhstan has developed the talk show “Saigez,” which aims at stimulating dialogue between various political forces in the country and providing viewers with regular, well-argued political discussion. The program, aired in both Russian and Kazakh, is shown on regional partner TV stations of Internews Kazakhstan.

Internews Kazakhstan also published a brochure titled, “Rights of journalists during the election”, which was disseminated among 42 national and regional media outlets and published on several websites. This brochure gives insight into the legal perspectives surrounding the coverage of the electoral process by local and foreign mass media. It explains in detail the rights and responsibilities of journalists when covering elections, including what constitutes a violation of those rights.

The Internews office has recently launched a media-monitoring project that will investigate the frequency and tone of political party coverage in the period prior to the election. Results of this study will be available in February 2012, and will be used to help media outlets provide more balanced coverage. The project is now also seeking to give a voice to parties and candidates that were not able to participate in the electoral race.

Internews Kazakhstan project priorities include strengthening media coverage in three key areas : the legitimacy and relevance of the electoral legislation, the work of mass media during elections, and the composition and the goals of the new parliament.