Azernews.Az

By Aynur Karimova

Kazakhstan, an energy rich nation in Central Asia, announced that it will hold snap parliamentary election in March 2016. Political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev believes that this will not bring any surprises or scandals.

“The preparation for the election has been conducted for a long time,” he told Trend on January 21. “It is hard to expect anything extraordinary."

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev scheduled the snap election of the Mazhilis for March 20. Earlier, the MPs appealed to the president with an initiative of the early dissolution of the parliament and snap election due to the aggravated economic situation in the country.

Ashimbayev said that the parties and the approximate parity of forces in the next sixth parliament will remain the same as in the fifth convocation.

“Only three parties in Kazakhstan have sufficient potential to enter the parliament,” he said. “Among them are the Nur Otan presidential party, the Ak Zhol right-wing liberal party and the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan. The balance of votes which they can get, in my opinion, would be about the same: 80 percent of the Nur Otan and within the 7-10 percent - Ak Zhol and Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan."

Ashimbayev further added that any reforms and extraordinary laws of the new parliament are not expected as well.

"The package of legislative measures to ensure the presidential program for the country’s further development has been adopted by the previous parliament in late 2015 and there are no urgent bills. The main task of the future parliament is to provide social protection under controversial circumstances of 2016,” he said.

President Nazarbayev also scheduled Regular election of MPs of maslikhats (local representative bodies) for March 20, 2016.

The Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan is sure that early parliamentary election in the country will make it possible to save budget funds.

“In general, we believe that the combination of election of the MPs of the Mazhilis and MPs of maslikhats in current economic conditions is an objectively reasonable solution,” CEC Chairman Kuandyk Turgankulov said at a press conference on January 21.

“This will make it possible to provide significant savings of the budget funds allocated for election campaigns, which is about 4.8 billion tenge [$1 = 374.6 tenge as of Jan. 21],” he added.

The process of nomination of candidates at the election of MPs of the Mazhilis elected on party lists will be held until February 8, and the registration of party lists will last until February 19.

Political parties can nominate candidates for MPs of the Mazhilis elected on party lists, while the Kazakh Assembly Council can nominate candidates for MPs of the Mazhilis elected by the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan.

Nomination of candidates for MPs of the Majilis from the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan will last until February 29, and their registration will be held from February 29 to March 5.

At the election of MPs of maslikhats, the nomination of candidates will last until February 19, 2016.

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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

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