After local and provincial officials chose new members for half of the country’s Senate, the constitutional court set in stone the date of the country’s next presidential elections. President Nazarbaev’s term runs dry in the beginning of 2006, but elections weren’t expected until December of that year — over a year from now. But the court, which is hardly independent, has set it for this December instead.

Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court has set the first Sunday of December as the date for presidential elections, ending a lengthy debate between the government and the opposition over the timing of the vote.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan for 16 years, has already announced his intention to run for re-election. While opponents criticize what they say is his increasingly authoritarian style, his popularity remains high, largely due to sustained economic growth, linked to the country’s oil business.

Following the pro-democracy revolutions in nearby Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, some analysts, like Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center, say Mr. Nazarbayev’s ruling party isn’t taking any chances. Mr. Malashenko says that is why Mr. Nazarbayev agreed to hold the elections this year, rather than in 2006, as his team first proposed.

The most notable effect of this is that it will give little time for the opposition to mount a challenge to Nazarbaev. As the article says, he’s in a good position anyway, as economic growth has been great compared to other restive countries like Uzbekistan. But he’s not taking any chances, and has totally ruled out a colored revolution like that in Ukraine.

President Nazarbayev has ruled out the possibility of a Ukraine or Georgia-style revolution taking place in his country, saying Kazakhstan is not ready for Western-style democracy. But analyst Alexei Malashenko, of the Moscow Carnegie Center, says anything is possible.

“Don’t forget, on the post-Soviet space, sometimes the situation may be unpredictable, and by the way, it was proved by Äthe recentÅ revolt in Kyrgyzstan,” he said.

The opposition has decided to unify behind one candidate, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, who has said protests are possible, if the election is declared flawed by international election observers like previous polls in Kazakhstan.

Anything is possible, but Nazarbaev certainly isn’t making it easy on the opposition. Besides giving them an impossibly short time period in which to organize, some of his latest measures include banning foreign funding of NGOs without government approval and the detaining and harassment of opposition supporters and journalists.