ALMATY - A Kazakh opposition leader who intends to challenge the ex-Soviet republic's longtime ruler in the next election was attacked Saturday by unknown assailants while meeting the public in an eastern town, a senior opposition official said.
Zharmakhan Tuyakbai narrowly escaped being hit by a brick thrown at him during a meeting in Ust-Kamenogorsk Saturday morning, said Petr Svoik, a senior official of the For a Fair Kazakhstan opposition alliance, who was standing by Tuyakbai at the time.
The forcefully thrown brick hit the wall behind Tuyakbai and shattered, injuring his spokesman and a cameraman, Svoik said.
Svoik said several men tried to pick a fight with Tuyakbai's assistants before the attack and that several police officers stood by and did not interfere. He called the incident "a planned provocation" that, he alleged, could not have been carried out without authorities' knowledge.
Officials weren't available for comment on Saturday.
Kazakh authorities have been jittery since the overthrow of the Soviet-era leader in neighboring Kyrgyzstan last month, which followed popular uprisings in two other former Soviet countries, Georgia and Ukraine.
Tuyakbai, a former chief prosecutor, resigned from the post of parliament speaker in October to protest flawed parliamentary elections.
Opposition groups have united around him as their candidate for president against President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the oil-rich nation for 16 years.
Nazarbayev's term expires in January 2006, however controversy surrounds the date of the next election. The opposition says it should be in December, while the election commission says the vote could be held after his term officially ends.
Nazarbayev has said he would run for another seven-year term.
On Friday, Kazakhstan's parliament amended a law to impose a ban demonstrations in an election period - a move seen as an attempt to prevent mass protests like those against electoral fraud in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
-AP