Following the recent registration of the Russian Party of Kazakhstan (RPK) as a legal entity, a group of deputies from the Mazhlis led by Ramazan Sarpekov started pushing for changes in the law on political organizations to make it harder to launch new parties. The current law requires the signature of 3,000 citizens for a party to be registered. Sarpekov argued for a dramatically larger figure to reflect the fact that any serious party should be representing at least 10 percent of the electorate. Otherwise, he said, "pseudo-parties" can arise with no broad-based support and having a divisive and provocative agenda. Many deputies fear that the RPK could open the door for “German, Uzbek, or Uighur parties to be registered in the future.” (ferghana.ru)