DUSHANBE, April 4, 2011, Asia-Plus — Kazakh incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev has secured a new five-year term in office in an April 3 election.
According to Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission (CEC), provisional figures show Nursultan Nazarbayev taking more than 95 percent of the vote in a poll that drew turnout of nearly 90 percent.
Nazarbayev faced three opponents: Gani Kasymov, who took 1.9 percent of the vote; Communist Zhambyl Akhmetbekov (1.4 percent); and environmentalist Mels Eleusizov (1.2 percent).
Three opposition parties boycotted the election, saying holding the vote with two months” warning did not give them time to mount a serious challenge to the incumbent, who has been in power in Kazakhstan since before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Despite the call for a boycott, Kazakhstan’s CEC reported turnout of about 90%.
Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, reported on April 4 that election observers reported no major violations on the polling day, although it was noted that Nazarbayev”s campaign was far more prominent than that of his rivals.
Monitors from the OSCE said on April 4 the poll was marred by serious irregularities and that “reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialize. In its preliminary assessment, the OSCE”s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) cited numerous instances of seemingly identical signatures on voter lists and several cases of ballot box stuffing and noted the vote count and tabulation lacked transparency, and procedures were often not followed. The ODHIR assessment said these were similar shortcomings as those noted in previous elections.
According to Russian news agency, RBK, observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said the outcome of the early presidential election truly reflected the will of Kazakhstan’s electorate.
Chief of the CIS election-monitoring mission Sergey Lebedev told a briefing in Astana that the April 3 election was democratic.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated Nursultan Nazarbayev with the victory in Kazakhstan’s presidential election. According to Itar Tass, Medvedev called Nursultan Nazarbayev on Monday and congratulated him on the successful election and a landslide victory.
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday congratulated Nursultan Nazarbayev on his re-election as President of Kazakhstan, Xinhua reported.
We will recall that the Kazakh Embassy in Dushanbe said on April 4 that the overwhelming majority of Kazakh nationals living in Tajikistan have voted for the incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
“In Tajikistan, 150 people, including employees of the Embassy and their families as well as Kazakh students studying at Tajik universities and Kazakh entrepreneurs that were in Tajikistan this time, cast ballots in the elections,” said the source. According to him, a polling station was opened at the Kazakh Embassy in Dushanbe and a mobile ballot box was used in Khujand, the capital of Sughd province. “The voter turnout at the polling station opened at the Embassy made 99.4 percent and according to the preliminary data, the overwhelming majority of votes were cast for the incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev,” the source added.
