Kazakhstan Votes to Strengthen the President

Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan gave the pro-presidential party a traditional landslide victory.According to three separate exit polls, Adilet won around 71% of the votes, with its four closest competitors battling over decimal points between 5-6%. Adilet was formed just over three months ago and registered in June.Soon after, it absorbed Amanat (formerly known as Nur Otan) to become the favorite to win a significant majority in the vote, which had already been scheduled for this summer.The exit polls from the night of August 23.What surprised observers most was the turnout.As confirmed by the Central Elections Commission on August 24, it stood at 74%, the highest in a decade and close to the number of people who turned out to the polling stations in March for the constitutional referendum.It was precisely the new Constitution that did away with the bicameral parliament (Majilis and Senate) and established the single-chamber Kurultai, with 145 seats.Now, Adilet will occupy more than 100 of those seats, while the four trailing parties (Auyl, Respublica, OSPD, and Ak Zhol) will share the roughly three dozen seats left.The results are yet to be officially confirmed.Photo by Daniyar Mussirov.Perhaps as an indication of “new Kazakhstan” shedding its old skin, for the first time in decades the People’s Party (formerly the Communist Party) will not have seats in the Kurultai, as the forecasts indicate it failed to surpass the 5% threshold.Baitak, the green party, obtained only around 1% of the votes, according to the three exit polls.This puts it behind the last option: “against all” – introduced a few years ago to allow people to express dissatisfaction with the available political options.Given the history of the parties that had been already in parliament and the task assigned to the new ruling party, it seems that the range of political options is only shrinking.Sign up for our English-language newsletter.