Status: 11/20/2022 9:27 p.m
As expected, President Tokayev is ahead in the presidential elections in Kazakhstan. Largely unknown candidates competed against the 69-year-old. Since taking office in 2019, Tokayev had increasingly disempowered the opposition.
According to initial projections, incumbent President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev received more than 82 percent of the votes. He should have clearly won the presidential election in Kazakhstan. The five other candidates were largely unknown and therefore had no chance. According to the post-election polls, they each received just over two percent.
During the election campaign, Tokayev had promised a “New Kazakhstan” with democratic progress and economic reforms. However, economic problems in Central Asia’s largest country persist, as do the authoritarian reflexes of the leadership. Since taking office in 2019, Tokayev had increasingly disempowered the opposition in the country.
Seven years instead of five years in office
The 69-year-old wanted to be elected to office for seven years after a constitutional amendment. Previously, presidents had been elected for five-year terms. Around twelve million people were called to vote in the country bordering China and Russia. A good ten months after the unrest in the Central Asian republic, according to official information, voting was quiet.
International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) plan to give their verdict on the election on Monday. They had previously criticized, among other things, restrictions on the registration of candidates for election and a lack of transparency in media ownership.
Kazakhstan’s proximity to Russia
In March 2019, Tokayev ousted his authoritarian predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had ruled Kazakhstan for around 30 years. In the elections in June of the same year, which were accompanied by police violence, Tokayev received 70.96 percent of the votes.
In January 2022, protests against high prices and social injustice in the country turned into an unprecedented power struggle. At the time, Tokayev gave the order to shoot at the demonstrators, whom he described as “terrorists.” The unrest, which killed at least 238 people and arrested around 10,000 people, was put down with the help of Russia. After that, he rarely sought contact with the government in Moscow and avoided publicly supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia is Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner. For Germany, the resource-rich country is the most important partner in Central Asia.