Keep It Official

摘要

Compared with his cabinet colleagues, Karim Massimov, Kazakhstan's prime minister, is a digital whizz-kid. When he took the job two years ago he already had his own website. Last month he flaunted both his technical know-how and his flair for self-promotion by emerging as the country's top blogger. He launched his personal blog, as an online forum for citizens to raise their concerns, and ordered his ministers to do the same.rnThe new blog may bring the government closer to the people, as intended; or it may turn out to be no more than a clever public-relations stunt. Already, citizens have started posting appeals on the blog. Mr Massimov has even raised a few in his official meetings. But if a draft law now before parliament is passed, other bloggers in Kazakhstan risk being shut down. More than a dozen newspaper editors and activists, saying it would lead to censorship, have signed an appeal for its withdrawal.