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Nazarbayev re-elected Kazakh president with 95.5% of votes

04 April 2011 07:29 (UTC +04:00)

CED chairman Kuandyk Turgankulov told reporters the partial official results showed the three other candidates failed to collect more than 2 percent of the vote. Zhambyl Akhmetbekov, head of the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan, received 1.4 percent of the vote and pro-government Senator Gani Kasymov of the Party of Patriots 1.9 percent. Independent and environmentalist Mels Yeleusizov picked up 1.2 percent.
The electoral body head said the results were "preliminary," but he did not give the percentage of the votes counted. Hours earlier Nazarbayev claimed his election victory, citing preliminary results and figures of exit polls. "Preliminary data from the Central Election Commission and exit poll data have established that the Kazakh people, our citizens, approve of the work I have been doing all these 20 years," he said Monday during a visit to the headquarters of his Nur Otan ruling party. A total of 22 people applied for candidacy, but 18 of them were out of the race either because they had not passed the Kazakh language test or failed to collect enough supporter signatures. Under the Kazakhstan election law, a presidential candidate should master the Kazakh language and collect at least 91,010 supporter signatures. The registered electorate is around 9.1 million in a nation with a population of 16.4 million. The candidate who wins over 50 percent of the votes will become the new president. The turnout in Sunday’s vote is estimated at nearly 90 percent.