Citizens of Kazakhstan are just one click away from jail

AS THE WORLD’S largest landlocked country and surrounded by a sea of authoritarianism, Kazakhstan goes to extraordinary lengths to put itself on the map—and show what a normal, upstanding country it is. Its 78-year-old ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, obsesses over hosting conferences, conventions and expositions: Banyan was once in Almaty, the commercial capital, for the world arm-wrestling championship. Last year Astana, the grandiose capital laid out by Mr Nazarbayev, hosted Expo 2017. Kazakhstan’s pavilion, topped by a giant blue orb, was quickly nicknamed the “Death Star”. “Normal” does not come naturally to Mr Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan.

Still, it can try. A fortune is spent on public relations to polish the country’s democratic credentials. At the start of the decade it triumphantly hosted a summit of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) a group that promotes free elections among other things. Kazakhstan’s own are certainly impressive. After the presidential election in 2016, the Leader of the Nation even had to apologise. In other democracies, he acknowledged, winning with 97% of the vote on a 95% turnout might raise eyebrows. Nonetheless, the pained Mr Nazarbayev explained, “I could do nothing. If I had interfered, I would have been undemocratic.”