Nursultan Nazarbayev - absolute winner of snap presidential elections
By Sara Rajabova
Nursultan Nazarbayev - Kazakhstan’s leader for 25 years and founder of modern Kazakhstan - has insured his ruling for another five years.
Kazakhstan’s incumbent President Nazarbayev won an expected landslide victory in the snap presidential election held on April 26, said the Central Election Commission.
Nazarbayev, who holds the title Elbasy, “Leader of the Nation”, gathered 97.7 percent of votes, according to preliminary data.
The other two presidential candidates, Turgun Syzdykov and Abelgazi Kusainov, gathered 1.6 percent and 0.7 percent of votes, respectively.
The voter turnout in the election was 95.22 percent, according to final data. The final results of the presidential election should be announced by the CEC no later than in seven days, that’s to say, no later than May 3, 2015, according to the election law.
Nazarbayev’s inauguration will be presumably held on May 1, according to Zakon.kz website.
Meanwhile, the government should resign before the newly elected Kazakh president under the country’s constitution.
After consultations with the political parties represented in parliament, the country’s newly-elected president will submit for consideration to parliament a candidate for prime minister, in keeping with the constitution.
The new prime minister, if approved by parliament under the appointment of the president, will be expected to propose a new government within ten days after his appointment.
During the previous presidential elections in 2011, President Nazarbayev gained a landslide victory with nearly 96 percent of the votes and since then, the citizens of Kazakhstan have continued to support him.
The Kazakh People’s Assembly in February made an initiative to hold snap elections, not to deal with election preparation and focus on work in 2016 – when experts have predicted economic difficulties will be most severe.
Nazarbayev proved himself a capable ruler and he has long been associated to a sign of stability in the country. Therefore, most people saw a change of leadership as undesirable and even dangerous.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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