Limited Choice and No Transparency. Democracy Kept at Bay in Kazakhstan’s Elections

A woman burned some stalks of wild rue into a pot and entered her polling station in the capital Astana, aiming to rid the elections of the “evil eye” through the incense produced by the plant. This unconventional method, however, could not ensure the fairness of the vote, as Kazakhstanis went to the polls to elect a new parliament and representatives of local assemblies on March 19.

Traditionally predictable, the results of the vote showed a landslide victory for the Amanat ruling party. For what concerns the party lists, Amanat garnered almost 3.5 million votes, or 53.9%. Government-friendly parties Auyl (10.9%), Respublica (8.6%), Ak Zhol (8.4%) the People’s Party (6.8%), OSDP (5.2%) were able to overcome the 5% threshold and will have seats in the Majilis, the lower house of the parliament.

Respublica, which registered just four months ago, and OSDP, formally an opposition party, will make their first appearance in the Majilis.

In the 29 single-mandate districts, despite the presence of a handful of independent candidates, all seats were captured by candidates loyal to the government and, in most cases, affiliated with parliamentary forces.

Commenting on the results, Luca Anceschi, professor of Central Asian studies at the University of Glasgow, said that authoritarian continuity cannot lead to any novelty.

“This idea of ‘New Kazakhstan’ is a label that makes no sense. If you look at the electoral results of the last nine months, the methods are taken straight from Nazarbayev’s textbook,” Anceschi noted, referring to former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled the country for three decades.

“Change is controlled and set up to preserve those in power.”

Nursultan Nazarbayev claps after casting his vote. He refused to answers questions from journalists. Photo by Zhanara Karimova.

Observers Don’t See Transparency

While institutional observers applauded the democratic exercise, independent observers noted that both the campaign and the polling day were rife with violations.

In the aftermath of the vote, representatives of the OSCE, the most respected international elections observation mission, said in a press conference in Astana that the elections lacked transparency.

“Some political groups continue to be prevented from participating as political parties in elections. While the elections brought elements of competitiveness into the political arena, diverse administrative obstacles negatively affected the quality of campaign opportunities for some self-nominated candidates.” Irene Charalambides, co-ordinator and leader of the OSCE short-term election observation mission, said.

“Significant procedural irregularities were observed [...] undermining the transparency of the process.”

At the same press conference, Reinhold Lopatka, the head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, said that a “seed of democracy has been sown” but there is still a long road to go.

“In the future, the publication of results from each polling station will be important to have an improvement of transparency and public confidence.”

Eoghan Murphy, of the OSCE/ODIHR long-term mission, which prepared a snap preliminary report, said the poor count of the votes clashed with the “smooth preparation” of the election by the authorities.

“We assessed negatively the counting of the votes in 58 out of 128 polling stations.”

Around 54% of the 12 million eligible to vote cast their ballots, with higher percentages in the peripheral regions and, as customary, low turnout in big cities. In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, only 25% of the eligible voters went to the polls.

In an interview with Vlast, Riccardo Pelizzo, associate professor of political science at Nazarbayev University in Astana, said that such low voter turnout could be a sign that the increased political competition failed to attract residents.

“Official polls show that the number of voters who made up their mind in the past few months had increased. Yet, while there was an increase in the consensus for the ruling party, the other parties did not capitalize on this trend. My guess is that in the end allowing more parties failed to restore trust, especially among the undecided.”

Surveys Say Amanat Lost Ground. The Results Disagree

Amanat’s large consensus at the polls translates into an even bigger presence in the Majilis, thanks to a distortion of the system and because several of the ruling party’s candidates also ran in the single-mandate districts.

Upon preliminary accounts 23 out of the 29 candidates that won the single-mandate districts are affiliated with Amanat.

Amanat’s 53.9% of the votes, together with the 23 single-mandate winners, could result in 62 or 63 seats, depending on the final count, which would translate into 63% of the seats.

The picture painted by the vote, however, looks significantly different from the one described by independent surveys, says Tlegen Kuandykov, Communications Officer at Central Asia Barometer (CAB), a non-profit public opinion research center.

“According to our latest data, collected in November-December, about 20% of Kazakhstanis favored the ruling party, Amanat,” Kuandykov told Vlast.

The popularity of Amanat (until last year known as Nur-Otan), according to CAB’s polls, is declining steadily since they started collecting data.

“Amanat’s popularity fell from 74% in 2017 to 49% in 2019, and further to around 20% in the last few years,” Kuandykov said. “The rebranding of the Nur-Otan party to Amanat, has not improved the reputation of the ruling party in the eyes of the population.”

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