Kazakh elections: foregone conclusion, Tokaev wins

The president's party at 54%. For the other forces only crumbs. The results of the uninominal constituencies are awaited. The government formation is the only structured one in the country. The low turnout is not a good sign for the 'new Kazakhstan' dreamt of by the head of state.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - While the counting of ballot papers for the various levels of the 19 March elections in Kazakhstan is still in progress, it is already possible to analyse the main outcomes, which will not be called into question by the final counts. With this vote, the troubled phase of 'changes' following the clashes over the January 2022 protests, in the course of which 228 people died, and many are still detained awaiting their fate.

The main issue concerns the transition from the authoritarian regime of the first 'eternal' president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, to one that wants to present itself as more democratic than its predecessor: Kasym-Žomart Tokaev, re-elected last November.

At the seat count according to the proportional part, President Amanat's party would have obtained a majority of 54%, whereas when it was called 'Nur Otan' in homage to Nazarbaev it regularly exceeded 80% of the votes.

The Auyl party, still pro-government, came second with 11%, and the remainder was split between four other parties, thus forming a six-party parliament in which no clear division of camps between government and opposition is apparent so far.

Still to be decided are the appointments of the 29 elected to the majority constituencies, among whom there could be a few surprises, despite attempts to marginalise or exclude undesirable candidates in Akorda (the presidential palace).

The partial results seem to reassure the leadership, as in most of the uninominal seats the percentages seem to clearly favour Tokaev's men. As the observer of the Kursiv newspaper, Nikolaj Kuzmin, notes, Amanat 'is the only party that has a system of social and political communication spread throughout the territory', with its local sections and media at its disposal, its youth movement and a large social media presence. 'It is the government that needs the party, and not vice versa,' explains Kuzmin.

An election scandal has also occurred in the city of Šymkent, the third largest metropolis after Almaty and Astana, where voting protocols that had already been compiled before the start of the electoral competition were shown online, complete with audios of officials assessing how to avoid charges of violation.

Local 'free' candidates intervened publicly on the eve of the elections, such as Omir Šynybekulj, who warned that he 'did not want to repeat the bloody events of January 2022' and asked Tokaev to suspend the mayor of Šymkent in order to ascertain the truth about the reported events. It all ended with the accusation of 'false provocation' by the Election Committee, which intends to verify the results 'with the utmost transparency'.

Other more or less serious cases of fraud were reported in various regions, with replacement of full ballot boxes and 'carousels' of voters turning up several times at the same polling station and others, as had also happened in previous elections with a foregone conclusion.  The OSCE observer mission gave a negative assessment to 58 of the 128 polling stations checked, with several violations of voting and counting procedures.

The overall forecast gives the declared pro-government parties 60 out of 98 seats in parliament. It is at least expected that among the deputies there will be some who are able to make the voices of the most critical sectors of society heard, while excluding the most radical opponents, such as the independent politician Inga Imanbaj and the journalist Lukpan Akhmeljarov, two candidates who still harbour faint hopes of winning the mandate, but are already complaining on social networks about the "open falsifications" in various polling stations.

Kazakhstan's most populous city, the former capital Almaty, showed great mistrust and apathy towards the elections, with 25.8% of voters compared to 42.9% in Astana, and it will be up to Tokaev to prove that the 'new Kazakhstan' is capable of at least partially satisfying the expectations of all its citizens.

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• astana
• elections
• tokaev
• nazarbaev
• opposition
• government