Tokayev re-elected Kazakh president with 81.31% of vote

Astana, Nov 21 (EFE).- Kazakhstan’s incumbent president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was re-elected with 81.31 percent of the votes, according to preliminary results released by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Monday.

This data corresponds to the counting of all the votes cast both in the country and abroad, the CEC said.

The preliminary figures also indicate that 69.44 percent of Kazakh voters went to the polls on Sunday, that is to say about 8.3 million of the almost 12 million eligible voters.

Tokayev, who came to power in 2019, will now lead the largest Central Asian republic until 2029, with a new constitutional amendment having limited presidential mandates, starting with this election, to a single seven-year term.

Jiguli Dayrabayev, of the Auyl People’s Democratic Patriotic Party, received 3.42 percent of the votes while Karakat Abden, of the National Alliance of Professional Social Workers, was the third most voted candidate, with 2.6 percent.

Meiram Kazhyken, of the Amanat Commonwealth of Trade Unions, received 2.53 percent of the ballots, National Social Democratic Party candidate Nurlan Auesbayev secured 2.22 percent and Saltanat Tursynbekova, of the Qazaq Analary-Dasturge Zhol association, won 2.12 percent.

Some 5.8 percent of the Kazakhs voted against all candidates, which was the second most voted option.

Tokayev, 69, has vowed to press ahead with democratic reforms, open Kazakhstan to foreign investment and recover money smuggled out of the country by oligarchs and corrupt top officials.

Tokayev received unexpected backing from Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, despite the fact that he has ousted many figures close to his family from power in the past three years.

Nazarbayev, who led the country for almost 30 years until 2019, described the prison sentence handed to one of his nephews for corruption as “fair” and supported the trial against one of his former collaborators for allegedly organizing the violent riots that rocked the Central Asian nation in January. EFE

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