Watchdog

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Kazakhstan's Nationwide Social Democratic Party (ZhSDP), the only registered party in the country that positions itself as opposition to the government, has decided to boycott an early presidential election scheduled for June 9.

The decision was made at a party congress in Almaty on April 26 to protest what party members say is the participation of "puppet" candidates proposed by pro-government parties to help secure an election victory for Kazakhstan's interim President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev from the ruling Nur Otan party.

A ZhSDP statement declares that fielding a candidate in the election would damage the party's reputation because it could be seen as a political group that is controlled or being used by the government.

Kazakhstan's ruling Nur Otan party nominated Toqaev as its candidate for the presidency on April 23.

Five other parties known to be loyal to Nur Otan nominated relatively unknown political figures the same day.

Toqaev, a former diplomat who had been the speaker of Kazakhstan's Senate, became interim president on March 20 -- one day after the country's long-time leader Nursultan Nazarbaev announced his resignation from the presidency.

Toqaev announced on April 9 that a snap presidential election would be held on June 9 -- moving forward the date of the next scheduled presidential election by nearly one year.

Critics, including the ZhSDP, say the snap election is aimed at shortening the political transition and decreasing the chances of instability following the resignation of Nazarbaev, who had ruled Kazakhstan in an autocratic manner since 1989 when it was still a republic of the former Soviet Union.

The announcement of the snap election just two months before the actual vote has given Toqaev's potential opponents little time to mount a campaign, greatly reducing their chances of becoming known by voters in a country where the political opposition has been marginalized and politics is still dominated by Nazarbaev.

Yury Kartyzhev has been convicted of "insulting human dignity" and expressing "disrespect" toward "organs of state power" after he called Russian President Vladimir Putin an obscene word online. He's the first person to be convicted under the newly amended law.

He's not exactly contrite.

"Some people say that Putin raised Russia from its knees," Kartyzhev told RFE/RL in an interview. "He didn't lift anything, we just have oil and gas. Put a monkey [in the president's office], it will be better than this Putin."

"How can I be silent? I will continue to speak out…. If we will be silent they will kill us little by little," he said.

Kartyzhev spoke to RFE/RL on April 24, one day after he was fined 30,000 rubles ($463) by a court in the Russian city of Chudovo.

The court found him guilty of making posts on his VKontakte web page on March 31 that insulted "human dignity and public morality" and expressed "a clear disrespect toward society, the state, and organs of state power in Russia."

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"I am not denying that I wrote it," he told Current Time. "I did write [an obscene word but mostly] with dots [instead of letters]: 'Putin is an incredible f...wit.'"

The 34-year-old Kartyzhev, an unemployed machinist, added: "This is my legitimate position [to write] with dots. I have the right to write."

The court said those posts on the most popular social-media site in Russia violated Article 20.1, part 3, of the Russian Criminal Code, which was amended in late March in a move that was widely criticized by international rights organizations.

Pavel Chikov, head of the legal-aid group Agora, said Kartyzhev was the first person in Russia to be convicted and fined under the recent amendments to that law.

'Genocide...Against The Russian Nation'

But if Russian officials thought the draconian law was going to curb Kartyzhev's criticism of the government, it seems to have had the opposite effect.

"We are killing our own pensioners.... People who have spent 40 years at work receive 7,000 [rubles] ($108) -- official salary [per month]," Kartyzhev told RFE/RL. "They have to pay for medicine, for apartment [utilities], and 3,000 [rubles] for food. No one could live on that. They are carrying out genocide...against the Russian nation."

Kartyzhev said he is a supporter of Communist Party lawmaker Nikolai Bondarenko because he carried out an experiment in which he tried to live on 3,500 rubles for one month. But he also professed an affinity for Russian opposition activist Aleksei Navalny.

"I think Navalny is doing a good job, opening people's eyes so they wake up to realize that the people have the power," he said. "What are we afraid of?"

Kartyzhev, who said he will appeal his case to the European Court of Human Rights, pledged to continue to write critical posts of Russian officials.

Kartyzhev's plight has also inspired the creation of a social media flash mob in support of his case.

And although he vowed he would pay just 30 rubles of his 30,000 ruble fine, Kartyzhev later posted a picture of his bank card on his VKontakte webpage asking readers to send him money so he could pay his fine.

Written by Pete Baumgartner based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Mark Krutov and Current Time.