ASTANA — Kazakhstan's electoral commission said Monday that the pro-presidential Adilet party won more than 71 percent of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary election, sweeping the country's first ballot for a single-chamber legislature and tightening President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's control over Central Asia's largest economy.
The result hands Tokayev, 73, a compliant new 145-seat body called the Kurultai, which replaces the previous two-chamber parliament under a constitution adopted earlier this year. Adilet, founded only months ago and led by the president's top aides, absorbed the previous ruling party, Amanat, before the vote.
Who else won
Four other blocs cleared the threshold, the commission said: the pro-business Respublika and Ak Zhol parties, the center-left Nationwide Social Democratic Party and the rural-focused Auyl. All four are broadly aligned with the president, leaving no opposition bloc in the new chamber. Turnout was 74 percent, with about 12.6 million of Kazakhstan's 20 million people eligible to vote.
What Tokayev gains
Sunday's election was the first test of March's constitutional referendum, which passed with 87 percent support, folded parliament into a single chamber and allowed the president to appoint senior officials subject to parliamentary approval and to reinstate a vice presidency. The Constitutional Court ruled in July that the amendments reset Tokayev's previous terms, clearing him to seek another seven-year mandate. Tokayev, in office since 2019, told journalists at his Astana polling station that it was too early to say whether he would run again.
The vote unfolded against a rougher domestic backdrop. Inflation hit 10.2 percent in February, and recent tax increases have stirred public discontent. Analysts cited by the Associated Press said authorities are trying to head off a repeat of January 2022, when protests over fuel prices turned violent; Al Jazeera reported that 238 people were killed in the unrest.
Media pressure
The campaign coincided with an intensifying squeeze on independent media. Authorities have opened roughly 10 criminal cases against journalists and popular bloggers, the AP reported. Lukpan Akhmedyarov, charged with "disseminating false information" after publishing a list of Kazakhs fighting in Ukraine, told the AP: "It feels like the authorities want to silence all media outlets they don't control."
No Kazakh opposition party challenged Monday's tally on the record in the AP or Al Jazeera dispatches, and both wires described all five parliamentary blocs as broadly loyal to the president. Tokayev has cast the constitutional overhaul as a shift away from the concentrated rule of his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, under a reform program he calls "Just Kazakhstan."
Tokayev told reporters he will name his pick for vice president, a post created under the new constitution, within seven to 10 days, and described the nominee as a "well-known" figure.