- Title: KAZAKHSTAN: Kazakhs vote for president, opposition cites flaws.
- Date: 5th December 2005
- Summary: BALLOT BOX DECORATED WITH KAZAKHSTAN SHIELD
- Embargoed: 20th December 2005 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kazakhstan
- City:
- Country: Kazakhstan
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAEBVODM43U9JJIMPE111SZJV3H
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Kazakhs voted on Sunday (December 4) in an election almost certain to return President Nursultan Nazarbayev to power for another seven years, but the opposition cited early signs of fraud. Kazakhstan, the world's ninth-largest country by landmass, has attracted billions of dollars of Western, Russian and Chinese investment as production from its oilfields grows, but it has never held an election judged free and fair. "We already have the first alarming signals from the provinces where there have been a number of violations," opposition challenger Zharmakhan Tuyakbai told reporters after he voted in the biggest city Almaty. He said his campaign had evidence of duplicate voter lists that could allow multiple voting -- a feature of past elections where monitors have reported voter list problems and pressure on state employees to vote for the government. In the bitterly cold and windswept new capital Astana, Nazarbayev said he had wound up his own campaign early to give his opponents more of a chance. "I am sure that the Kazakh people will choose a political stability, friendship and accord for multi-national people, that they will choose progress of the state in this direction and soon Kazakh state with its people join fifty industrialized countries of the world. We will keep the stability of our country, the economy will be growing and with the economy, the living conditions of our people will improve," the 65-year-old former Communist Party apparatchik told reporters, after casting his vote. Polling stations closed at 8:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) and early results from a Belarus-designed electronic voting system that is used alongside paper ballots are expected on Monday morning, election officials have said. Officials in polling station no. 1 in the heart of Astana, home to government bureaucrats and state employees, said that of the 306 people who voted there electronically, all but seven voted for Nazarbayev. The opposition has said it will not break the law by arranging spontaneous demonstrations against alleged vote-rigging like those that swept through Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and ousted long-serving leaders. But the authorities have taken no chances, closing the border with Kyrgyzstan and issuing statements in recent weeks saying they would come down hard on any disorder. Almaty -- the most opposition-minded city -- has been awash with rumours of impending unrest and Central Election Commission data at 6:00 p.m. showed it had a low turnout: just 42 percent compared to a national average of 68 percent. Bulat Abilov, an opposition campaign manager, said he feared the low turnout could assist any vote-rigging because it would leave unused ballot papers. He blamed the atmosphere of fear on television stations "that have been inciting hysteria". Tuyakbai, 58, running for opposition alliance For a Just Kazakhstan, has focused his campaign on corruption scandals under Nazarbayev and his family's business interests. Three other candidates are also running, including Alikhan Baimenov, a former labour minister who has broken away from the main opposition bloc.
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