Kazakh leader stages snap vote to emerge from predecessor's shadow
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Kazakh army service members cast their votes at a polling station in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Nov 20, 2022.
PHOTO: REUTERS
ALMATY - Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev holds a snap election on Sunday that he is certain to win, solidifying his grip on power less than a year after he sidelined his long-ruling predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Polling stations opened at 7am local time (9am Singapore time).
The nearly 12 million voters of the vast Central Asian country will have until 8pm to cast their ballots in the vote.
A former diplomat, Mr Tokayev came to power in 2019 as Mr Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor when the country’s only ruler since the Soviet era stepped down.
He broke with his ex-patron after a January uprising that Mr Tokayev called a coup attempt.
A new election victory - a foregone conclusion against five little-known candidates - will give Mr Tokayev, 69, the sort of overwhelming personal mandate Mr Nazarbayev routinely secured as he built a personality cult over five successive terms.
Mr Nazarbayev, who had held on to important posts after stepping down, gave them up during the uprising in which 238 people died.
Mr Tokayev has since forced Nazarbayev allies to relinquish other positions, and changed the name of the capital - renamed “Nur-Sultan” in Mr Nazarbayev’s honour - back to Astana.
Mr Tokayev called in Russian help to put down the unrest, but has since kept his distance from Moscow, avoiding giving public backing to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia is Kazakhstan’s biggest trading partner, and Russia’s slide into recession has hurt Kazakh economic growth, while the strength of the rouble boosted by capital controls has helped push inflation in Kazakhstan to a 14-year high.
Mr Tokayev, a former foreign minister and deputy secretary general of the United Nations, has overseen constitutional reforms which limit his own rule to two terms. He has also promised to reduce income inequality by rooting out corruption and redistributing wealth more fairly.
Polls have predicted none of the five other candidates would score in the double digits.
“Among those who are running for president, I only know Tokayev, firstly,” said Timerlan Sadykov, a resident of Kazakhstan’s biggest city Almaty.
“And secondly, the way he’s conducted himself on the international stage has been very appealing.”
Exit poll data will be published hours after voting ends and preliminary results are expected on Monday. AFP, REUTERS
