ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) — As oil-rich Kazakhstan votes for a president Sunday, the governing elite is pounding home a mantra of stability as fears percolate about the country’s massive Russian minority taking inspiration from the Moscow-backed insurgency in Ukraine.
The former Communist party boss’ two rivals — a trade union leader and a Communist politician— have negligible public profiles and are standing only to create the illusion of competition.
Recently, niggling anxieties about the potential for such a large ethnic group to pursue a separatist agenda have been rekindled by unrest in Ukraine, where ethnic Russians have been goaded by Moscow into …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
