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Voters in Kazakhstan on Sunday went to the polls to choose lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, which is being reconfigured in the wake of deadly unrest that gripped the resource-rich Central Asian nation a year ago.
Although the electoral field was unusually large with two newly registered parties and hundreds of individual candidates joining the race, turnout appeared relatively unenthusiastic — about 54% of eligible voter cast ballots, according the national elections commission.
The early election came on the fourth anniversary of the resignation of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since independence following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and who had established immense influence.
His successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, was widely expected to continue Nazarbayev’s authoritarian course and even renamed the capital as Nur-Sultan in his predecessor’s honor.
