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| | Rice talks up free and fair elections in Central Asia / Opposition leaders say she doesn't go far enough |
 | | Kazakhstan holds presidential elections in December, Tajikistan next year, and in both places the longtime leaders, who live and work in gilded, bespangled palaces they have built for themselves, are harassing and imprisoning opposition candidates who seem to pose even a minor threat. |
 | | At every forum, Rice spoke of the need for "free and fair elections," but that was not enough for some opposition candidates in a part of the world where speaking out against the government, even during an election campaign, can prompt a beating or jail term. |
 | | A senior State Department official, traveling with Rice, said he believed that the two presidents were oppressing the political opposition not because they feared losing an election but because "they are afraid of this spinning out of control," as happened in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where popular uprisings overthrew longtime government leaders. |
| www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/14/MNGJ2F8D7V1.DTL (341 words) |
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