Voters in Kazakhstan are casting their ballots Sunday in a snap election that appears most likely to go back the incumbent president to energy, in an election the OSCE has described as “low-key.”
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who confronted a bloody outburst of unrest early this 12 months after which moved to marginalise one of the vital Central Asian nation’s longtime robust figures, seems sure to win a brand new time period in opposition to little-known challengers.
Five applicants are at the poll in opposition to Tokayev, however with a brief marketing campaign length that started in overdue October, they’ve had little alternative to mount vital demanding situations. Tokayev, it seems that assured of maintaining a robust merit, stayed clear of a nationally televised election debate.
The election for a seven-year time period comes as Tokayev has taken steps to stay Kazakhstan’s distance from longtime best friend and dominant regional energy Russia. He pointedly stated the rustic didn’t recognise the Ukrainian areas that Russia declared to be sovereign states on the outset of the warfare that started when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
Kazakhstan has taken in loads of hundreds of Russians who fled after President Vladimir Putin issued a conscription order in September.
When Tokayev become president in 2019 following the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, he was once extensively anticipated to proceed the authoritarian process the person who had led the resource-rich nation because it won independence from the Soviet Union. Nazarbayev remained extremely influential as head of the nationwide safety council, and the capital was once renamed Nur-Sultan in his honor.
Then a wave of violence shook the rustic in January, when provincial protests to start with sparked by way of a gasoline worth hike engulfed different towns, significantly the industrial capital, Almaty, and become openly political as demonstrators shouted “Old man out!” in connection with Nazarbayev. More than 220 folks, most commonly protesters, died as police harshly put down the unrest.
Amid the violence, Tokayev got rid of Nazarbayev from his safety council put up. He restored the capital’s earlier title of Astana, and the Parliament of Kazakhstan repealed a legislation granting Nazarbayev and his circle of relatives immunity from prosecution.
Tokayev later driven thru reforms that integrated strengthening the parliament, lowering presidential powers and restricting the presidency to a unmarried seven-year time period — that means he may just keep in place of work till 2029, if he wins Sunday’s election.
“There may be optimism when it comes to (Tokayev’s) promise to reform the political system even as concerns remain that Tokayev will ultimately prioritize his own interests — and those of other elites — over the cause of democratization,” analyst Temur Umarov wrote in a remark for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Some critics have recommended that the snap election for the seven-year time period is much less an effort towards authentic reform than Tokayev’s try to lengthen his time in place of work; his present time period would result in 2024.
A file by way of the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe’s election commentary undertaking famous that “despite the fact that candidates started to hold meetings across the country … the campaign thus far is low-key and has generated little interest and debate.”
