Kazakhstan celebrates early legislative elections amid timid threats of democratic renewal after the 2022 repression

March 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Kazakh citizens vote this Sunday in early legislative elections that mark an attempt by the government led by President Kasim Jomart Tokayev to reflect a certain sense of democratic openness after the very violent repression carried out by the authorities during last year’s protests against the rise in fuel prices, which resulted in almost 240 deaths.

Tokayev, the country’s undisputed leader, has promoted for some time now measures that encourage multipartyism, such as reducing the percentage of votes needed to reach Parliament from 7 to 5 percent in the face of elections that will incorporate independent candidates.

In the previous legislature, only three parties were represented and all supported President Tokayev, who was re-elected president in November last year with a landslide victory, collecting more than 80 percent of the vote without any real opposition.

In response to the November elections, the European Union accepted the results and applauded the reform process announced by Tokayev after last year’s crackdown, although it criticized the lack of political competition. Since then, the president has promised to promote a modernization process that will have one of its most important tests since the outbreak of the protests in these elections.

Now, in these elections, 69 seats will be chosen according to party lists and 29 by voting in single-mandate districts. Pro-president parties, experts predict, will enjoy a parliamentary majority as they alone compete for all 69 party-list seats. But the 29 seats available in the single-mandate districts offer the opportunity for people who are not affiliated to express themselves in the chamber, say experts consulted by the Intellinews portal.

Several pro-government parties will accompany Amanat, the formation of the president, in these elections, as well as the Adal and Auyl parties, which did not obtain enough votes last time to overcome the necessary threshold to access Parliament. The National Social Democratic Party, which boycotted the 2021 elections, will also present.

However, true opponents of the president, such as the Democratic Party, remain without official permission to run. His leader, Zhanbolat Mamai, is under house arrest, charged with encouraging the January protests, but his wife, Inga Imanbai, is running as an independent.