Has the Kazakh Prime Minister’s Blog Opened a Pandora’s Box?

By Yekaterina Syrtsova, Associate Account Manager, The PBN Company, Almaty

Thirty active Kazakh government blogs have been set up since Prime Minister Karim Masimov started a campaign on January 30 to encourage blogging among ministers, governors and heads of various state agencies. All the blogs follow a Q&A format, but now new questions are being raised as the blogs take on unexpected uses.

By far the most popular government blog to date is the Prime Minister’s. Despite some complaints about the efficiency of official blogs, most questions have been answered and Karimov even posts video responses. There have been obvious positive changes in official blogging, improving the overall quality of the Internet in Kazakhstan.

Interestingly, Kazakhstanis have started to use the official blogs as a way to complain about the dishonesty of their employers. The PM’s blog is full of posts describing what is said to be an “epidemic of companies firing employees and reducing staff”. According to the complaints, firms are not paying social security allowances and are asking that employees take “indefinite salary breaks” or are “forced to leave ‘voluntarily’.”

The PM’s blog has also become a loophole for leaking evidence designed to discredit high-level government officials and heads of state agencies. “New information levers” have been generated by the appearance of the private blogs of PM Masimov and other ministers, according to Vox Populi magazine. As a result, the magazine said, “one can now make public compromising facts.” The ever-hungry sensationalist press has not hesitated to spread these ‘facts’.

The way in which official blogs contribute to and influence public debate in Kazakhstan continues to evolve. But in a few short months, they do seem to have prompted a new form of public involvement.

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