President Nursultan Nazarbayev defended his oil-rich Central Asian state's democratic record on Friday and warned that revolution in Kazakhstan could lead only to chaos - a reference to upheavals in Ukraine and Georgia. "We have always remembered that democracy is our ultimate goal, but not the beginning of the road," he said in a state-of-the-nation speech interrupted for nearly 50 minutes by a power cut in the country's new parliament building.

The huge ex-Soviet state neighbouring China and Russia has reformed its economy and grown rapidly thanks to booming oil production in recent years; but it has never held an election judged free and fair and concentrates power in Nazarbayev's hands.

"Reckless changes will only lead to chaos in the country," Nazarbayev told the lower house of parliament. Kazakhstan, he said, was building a Western-style democracy but with its own Asian peculiarities.

The chamber in the new capital Astana is devoid of any opposition members after an election last September that the opposition said was rigged and foreign monitors criticised.

"Any revolts and revolutions... would only lead to great losses and would throw society backwards," he said in his speech, broadcast live on television.

Mass protests in Ukraine last year against a rigged presidential vote and similar demonstrations in Georgia a year earlier both led to "bloodless revolutions" that ushered in new West-leaning leaders.

Copyright Reuters, 2005