Pro-democracy protesters have been seized in Kazakhstan, as a campaign to keep Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president, in power for another decade without elections claimed the support of more than half the country's voters.

Kazakhstan's president is preparing to back a move to cancel elections in the oil-rich former Soviet Republic until 2020, his chief spokesperson said on Tuesday, confirming that the self-styled citizen's initiative has the full support of the country's leadership.

THE workings of Kazakhstan's political machine are regrettably now rather familiar. An obscure group of concerned citizens gathers in a distant corner of the country and there, for the good of the nation, makes a ground-breaking proposal. Ever receptive to the people's will, the authorities in the capital rush to make this new idea their own and forward it to the president. The wise and caring leader must then decide whether to stick to the letter of the constitution or bend it to do the good people's bidding.

ALMATY (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday condemned Kazakhstan's move to extend the rule of veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev to 2020, bypassing a 2012 election, and said this would be a blow to democracy.

ASTANA — The Kazakh parliament Wednesday backed a controversial plan for a referendum to extend the mandate of strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev to 2020 and skip two presidential elections.

The man accused of being the world's biggest fraudster has been hit with a record-breaking Ј4billion court order by a London judge.