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Kazakh Leader Hails Unity, OSCE Criticizes Parliament Vote

January 16, 2012

VOA News

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev says his party's landslide victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections is a sign of national unity and support for his government, following deadly anti-government protests last month.

But international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Monday criticized the election, saying it excluded any real opposition to Nazarbayev, who has ruled the country for more than 20 years. The OSCE report said the polls did not meet basic democratic principles.

Two political parties, the pro-business Ak Zhol party and the largely pro-government Communist People's party, will for the first time join the president's Nur Otan party in parliament. Every seat had previously been held by the ruling party.

Election results released Monday show Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party won more than 80 percent of the vote. They give Ak Zhol 7.5 percent and the Communist People's Party 7.2 percent.

Under Kazakhstan's new election law, the second-place finisher automatically gets seats. But any party that gets at least 7 percent of the vote also wins seats.

The opposition All-National Social Democratic party says it plans to hold a protest on Tuesday. The party, which says it is the only true opposition choice, won only 1.6 percent of the vote. It is among four other parties contesting election, none of which garnered the required 7 percent of the vote.

Sunday's elections were held a month after a protest by laid-off government oil workers in the town of Zhanaozen turned violent, leaving at least 15 people dead. Authorities in the town originally cancelled voting, but President Nazarbayev ordered it to be held as scheduled.

Such anti-government violence is rare in Kazakhstan, where despite a lack of free speech and human rights, the country's oil wealth has brought a higher standard of living than in most other Central Asian former Soviet states.

Nazarbayev has been Kazakhstan's only president since it gained independence in 1991.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.