On November 20, Kazakhstan held a general election, and the current president Tokayev participated in the vote.
According to Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan held a general election ahead of schedule on November 20 local time. On the 21st, the Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan announced the preliminary statistical results of the vote.
Kazakhstan Central Election Committee Chairman Nurlan AbdōŁłow said that in this presidential election, more than 8.282 million voters participated in the voting, accounting for 69% of the total number of registered voters. According to preliminary results, the current President Tokayev received a total of 6456,392 votes, with a vote rate of 81.31%, far exceeding the other five candidates for successful re-election. In addition, the first "Oppose All Candidates" option has 460,484 votes, accounting for 5.8% of the total.
The Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan recently said that there are nearly 12 million registered voters in this presidential election, and 10,101 polling stations are set up in China. In addition, there are 68 polling stations in 53 overseas countries. Due to "well-known reasons", the presidential election will not be set up in Ukraine. Kazakhstan citizens and staff in Ukraine in Ukraine need to go to Warsaw, the capital of Poland, to participate in the voting.
After participating in the vote on November 20, Tokayev said that the government will not resign after the presidential election because "political reform must continue, otherwise there will be stagnation." In addition, he said that new political parties may appear before parliamentary elections, and Kazakhstan will continue to uphold an all-round foreign policy in diplomacy.
On September 1 this year, Tokayev proposed to advance the new presidential election, which should have been held in 2024, to fall 2022, and to advance the parliamentary election, which should have been held in 2025, to the first half of 2023. In addition, Tokayev also suggested changing the presidential term to 7 years and not being re-elected. On September 21, Tokayev officially announced that the presidential election will be held on November 20 this year, and on the same day, a presidential decree on holding non-routine presidential elections was signed.
Since then, many social groups and political parties in Kazakhstan nominated or supported Tokayev as presidential candidate: On October 5, the Kazakh Veterans Association, Kazakhstan Citizens League, Kazakhstan Athlete League, Qazaqstan Team Youth Public Federation, National Volunteer Network and other social groups announced that they nominated Tokayev as presidential candidate; on October 6, the "Amanat" Party and the Kazakhstan People's Party also nominated Tokayev as presidential candidate, and the "Road of Light" Democratic Party also announced that it would support Tokayev as presidential candidate. At the People's Union forum held on October 6, Tokayev said that multiple major political parties, social groups and public organizations jointly elected him as a candidate, covering almost all social classes. He said that the non-routine presidential election held on November 20 is an extremely critical election for Kazakhstan to enter a new political era, and the establishment of a fair and just Kazakhstan is the ultimate goal of the reforms being and to be implemented.
On November 11, the poll results released by the Kazakhstan Institute of Social Opinion showed that 71.6% of respondents expressed their intention to participate in the non-routine presidential election voting held on November 20, 84.4% of respondents expressed their belief that the presidential election will be conducted fairly, and 78.8% of respondents expressed their support for the current President Tokayev.
On March 19, 2019, Kazakhstan's first president Nazarbayev suddenly announced his resignation as president, and Tokayev, then Speaker of the House of Commons, became acting president. On April 9 of that year, Tokayev announced the early presidential election and was successfully elected with nearly 71% of the votes on June 9. In January 2022, turmoil broke out in the country. Tokayev replaced the resigned Nazarbayev as chairman of the National Security Committee and chairman of the "Light of the Motherland" Party. On March 1, the "Light of the Motherland" Party held a meeting and decided to rename the "Light of the Motherland" Party to the "Amanat" Party. Then Tokayev announced his withdrawal from the "Amanat" Party on the grounds of maintaining political neutrality.
Author: Zhao Zhongqi
Editor: Liu Chang
Picture: Kazakhstan President's official website
