By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Reports: Borat no big to Kazakh powers
ABC’s Asa Eslocker writes that Kazakhstan’s oil-agarch’s trip to the US isn’t about Borat. The September 29 presidential audience between Mr. Bush and the authoritarian 66-year-old Kazakh head, Nursultan Nazarbayev has its own logic trailing the Fatherland party candidate, re-elected with a remarkable 91% of the vote, contested by observers worldwide. [Bloomberg reported at the time, “Kazakhstan has never held a free and fair election during Nazarbayev’s rule, according to Freedom House.”] “The reports were strongly denied by Roman Vassilenko, the Press Secretary at the Kazakhstan Embassy. “The meetings have nothing to do with Cohen… The whole premise of the story in the Daily Mail is actually misplaced…” The White House also [said] three different times to ABC News… there is “no truth to it.” Of its oil reserves, ABC says, with masterful reserve, “Kazakhstan is a stable secular country located in a very strategic region with major energy and investment opportunities for the United States.” Nazarbayev, sitting on one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas, will not only be feted at the White House, but will also trek to former President and present power broker George Bush’s Kennebunkport compound, the library to which, one must not forget, New Yorker writer Brendan Gill observed was stocked with but one title: “The Fart Book.” Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan opens November 3. Another freewheeling election may or may not take place in Kazakhstan in 2012.