Astana, Kazakhstan - Nearly everyone turned out and nearly everyone voted for the president.
On Sunday, Kazakhstan’s incumbent president Nursultan Nazarbayev won another term when the preliminary results of Sunday’s presidential election were announced.
The other two candidates - Communist party leader Turghyn Syzydyqov and head of Kazakh Unions Federation Abdelghazy Husainov - were annihilated in the voting.
Fourteen hours after the polls closed, Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission chairman Kuandyk Turgankulov announced the preliminary results: 97.7 percent for Nazarbayev, 1.6 percent for Syzydygov and 0.7 percent for Husainov.
The percentage poll was 95.22 percent.
No numbers were given for the actual number of votes cast for each candidate and no details on the number of spoilt votes.
The deadline for the final results is May 3.
Some observers gave the election the thumbs up, others were critical.
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) said its observer team found the election was “true, fair, open and transparent”. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organisation of former Soviet republics, also gave the election the green light.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said the election was efficient but the consolidation of power in the incumbent president and lack of genuine opposition limited voters’ choices.
There were “significant restrictions to both candidacy rights and fundamental freedoms”
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Pretoria News