the campaign for the parliamentary elections enters the peak

The vote has been set for March 19, along with the administrative ones. Independent candidates denounce harassment by the authorities. To register a candidacy, 2,500 euros are needed, in a country where the average salary is around 700. A large victory for President Tokaev’s party is expected.

Moscow () – The electoral campaign in Kazakhstan, ahead of the parliamentary and administrative elections on March 19, is coming to a head after the first public confrontations between the candidates of the different lists, highlighting a social reality that is on the move despite attempts to control it from above. After the dramatic and bloody political tensions of the past year, the various groups are cautiously trying to propose real political reforms. However, independent and opposition candidates who have managed to run complain that they have little chance of entering the various Maskhilat, central and local level parliaments.

In his election videos, the journalist and independent candidate Lukpan Akhmedjarov describes in detail the path he followed during the thirty years of Kazakhstan’s independence, in which he became aware of corruption even in the world of information. He took to the streets in demonstrations against the government and even suffered an attack in which he received nine stab wounds and two compressed air projectiles.

Akhmedjarov criticizes his opponents from the ruling Amanat party, stating that “before, this formation was a collection of corrupt officials; Today he supports a person who hid his son for more than a month from the public security organs because he had accidentally killed a woman who was rowing a boat… and this person promises us to guarantee the rule of law! law! “.

The reporter is very popular in the northwestern Uralsk region and will fight for the single-member seat along with 700 other candidates. Single-member seats have been up for grabs since 2004, but the 700 contenders will only have 29 seats available. This is one of the effects of the constitutional reform promoted by President Kasym-Žomart Tokaev after the dramatic events that in January 2022 caused the death of 238 people.

Despite appearances, Akhmedyarov explains that “independent and outside the system candidates constantly look at each other and wonder when and how they will take us out of the game.” The control of the tax declarations of the candidates has already led to the exclusion of several of them, especially at the municipal level. In Uralsk, as the candidate recounts, “a few hours after the official start of the campaign, many very expensive billboards and various advertisements appeared on television, as if some could freely use administrative resources.”

The candidate for the Almaty regional parliament, Žibek Amenova, witnessed the arrest of another candidate, Aygerim Tleužanova, directly in the electoral committee. She is now being investigated for the riot at the local airport a year ago, and she was delisted for “forgery of bank documentation.” Amenova believes that “it was an absolutely illegitimate arrest, the law cannot block her candidate status, not even with Supreme Court rulings.” Both are candidates of the alliance of independents.

Akhmedjarov also regrets the fact that he had to pay a sum of more than one million tenge (about 2,500 euros) to register his candidacy “in a country where the average salary is around 700 euros”, an already exorbitant figure outside from Almaty and Astana. He tried to organize a fundraising campaign to support the candidates, but this can only be done in one bank, Halyk, which only collects contributions paid physically at its branches, upon presentation of a power of attorney signed by the candidate and confirmed with a notarial deed.

At every public rally held by Akhmedyarov and the other independents, characters appear chanting “what foreign agency is funding them?” accusing them of not being patriotic enough because they send their children abroad to study. Akhmedyarov’s 17-year-old daughter is finishing high school, but she has already submitted an official application to an institution outside of Kazakhstan. He replied: “I hope you will make the same objections about the sons of Tokaev and Nazarbaev, and their property abroad.”

In any case, the new Parliament will be controlled by Tokaev’s “Amanat” party, heir to Nazarbaev’s “Nur Otan”, and the only problem of the “democratic revolution” will be related to the few seats that are allocated to the other admitted parties. , and to the few brave truly independent candidates.