Kazakhstan President's Party Rules The Roost Amid Unprecedented Voter Turnout

From Rema Nambiar ASTANA, March 21 (Bernama) -- As expected, Kazakhstan's parliamentary election on Sunday did not spring any surprises. Announcing the preliminary results at a press conference here Monday morning, Kazakhstan Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Kuandyk Turgankulov said the Nur Otan party, led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, won 82.15 per cent of the votes cast. "The party won 82 per cent of the popular vote," he said. Two other political parties - the rightist, pro-business Ak Zhol and leftist Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan (CPPK) - were again elected into the Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament, after receiving 7.01 per cent and 7.14 per cent respectively, of the votes cast. According to the CEC, 77.1 per cent of voters had turned up to cast their ballots yesterday, the highest ever recorded in the country. CEC Member Marat Sarsembayev described Sunday's voter turnout as "record-breaking". A total of 9,840 polling stations were open across the country from 7am to 8pm on Sunday. According to the CEC, the voting process went on smoothly, with no untoward incidents being reported. Representatives from international observer groups like the mission of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights were also present to assess the pre-election and electoral processes. In their interim reports, both organisations had said that the pre-election process was "sufficiently transparent". They also noted "the good organisation of the electoral process and observers easy accessibility to the CEC". As per Kazakhstan's Constitution, 98 out of 107 deputies to the Mazhilis are elected under the proportional representation system based on the parties' candidate lists. The political parties must obtain at least seven per cent of the votes cast to gain seats in the lower house. In 2009, however, the election law was amended to guarantee at least two parties in parliament in the event only one party passed the threshold. The remaining nine seats in the Mazhilis will be reserved for the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, a consultative body comprising ethnic community associations, which will elect its own members of parliament or deputies to represent the interests of the country's 130 ethnic groups. The upper house or Senate has 47 members, 15 of whom are appointed by the president while the rest are elected by an electoral college of local legislators. Kazakhstan also observes elections for local councils, known here as Maslikhats. Elections for the deputies to the various district, city and regional Maslikhats were also held yesterday. --BERNAMA