Clannish and authoritarian leadership, endemic corruption, and lots of oil: the surface parallels between Kazakhstan, preparing for presidential elections this coming Sunday, and Azerbaijan, its neighbour across the Caspian Sea, are striking.

The chances of Kazakhstan’s election being free and fair seem no better than they were in Azerbaijan, which held a disputed parliamentary poll last month. Neither do the opposition’s chances of summoning big enough protests - if the elections are seen as rigged - for it to follow Georgia, Ukraine and its smaller neighbour, Kyrgyzstan, into a pro-democracy revolution.